Pandora and Her Merry Prankster
by ZeeGerman
Summary: Pre-Begins, goes through Knight. Young Vicki Vale has always been too curious for her own good. The Joker likes that about her.
1. Pandora and Her Merry Prankster

**Title**: "Pandora and Her Merry Prankster"

**Rating**: T for general profanity and (hopefully) scary moments

**Time-Frame**: Pre-_Batman Begins_

**Disclaimer**: I adore Christopher Nolan and his revamp of the Batman franchise. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That said, I don't own Batman et al.

**A/N**: Could be read as a one-shot (it was actually intended as such), I've been tossing around further development ideas in my head ever since I managed to type this out. Also, I don't like pandering to possible reviewers, because it makes me feel pathetic but... In the words of the Joker: "You complete me."

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"_The first rule to self defense is to keep yourself out of danger in the first place. Can a Pandora like you manage that at least?" –Jim Gordon_

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"Dr. Crane?" Intrepid student and hopeful photojournalist Vicki Vale rapped her knuckles on the door frame to the office of Arkham Asylum's top psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist (read: ringleader). When he looked up and spotted her, annoyance flitted across his protuberant blue eyes. He quashed it with a quick upturn of his mouth into a strained, but affable smile.

"Miss Vale, I presume?" They shook hands and he gestured for her to sit in one of the skeletal chairs in front of his desk. "The college student Dr. Rudge wrote to me about…"

Vicki sat down and winced at the creaks the chair emitted as she settled in and fiddled with the over-sized camera slung around her neck. Screwing her courage to the sticking place, as her mother often encouraged, she made eye contact with Dr. Crane for about three seconds before she had to switch her gaze to his necktie. His gaze was so penetrating that she began to shiver, despite the sweaty humidity of premature summer in Gotham City.

"And you're here to photograph my inmates for your thesis, is that it?"

"Yes sir," Vicki managed to wheeze out, her throat suddenly dry. She gulped and began a speech designed to entice the good doctor into letting her into the inner depths of an asylum that housed 46 of the 100 most dangerous criminals in the country. "S-sir, I would like to begin my request with the assurance that this is _not_ a project that will exploit your patients in any, uh, way, shape or form. Any photos I take, you are allowed to veto and I assure you, these photos will not be seen by anybody except Professor Rudge."

She paused to take another dry breath.

"I am double-majoring in photojournalism and psychology, with a minor in criminal justice, so your establishment has been at the forefront of my thoughts for my entire college career. I wrote a paper about Arkham last year, and we spoke in brief on the phone about how you and Professor Rudge converted Arkham from a simple prison into a treatment facility for criminals with crippling mental defects, if you'll remember?"

Dr. Crane nodded, raising a quizzical eyebrow. In truth, he could not recall the event. Perhaps if he had set eyes on her then, her doll-like features, bee-stung lips and surge of blonde curls might have been striking enough to warrant interest. Now, her physical qualities were overshadowed by the pervading sense of nervousness Miss Vale betrayed every time she fidgeted with her damn camera. She was merely an intimidated school girl; no mystery in her fear.

"I decided that the ultimate overlapping subject for my thesis," Vicki continued, unaware that Dr. Crane had already written her off, "would be a study on the inmates of Arkham. I've finished most of my paper through research and the complicity of Professor Rudge in detailing some of the cases he treated first-hand during the initial years of Arkham's operation as an asylum. However, I've discovered that three of the subjects I interviewed Dr. Rudge about are still being treated here at present." Vicki took another deep breath. This time, she tried to cut through the mental bullshit and got to point. "Sir, I'd like to interview and photograph these three for my thesis. The interviews will be short and concise," Vicki assured him, her voice stronger now, "conducted in any manner you see fitting, and the final product of my thesis will include only updates about your inmate's conditions; how well they've been doing since Professor Rudge defected from Arkham to teach."

"Of course."

Before Vicki could even sigh in relief, Dr. Crane gave her an answer that she'd never dared to hope for when she imagined the 19 different scenarios of her exchange with him. When she chanced further eye contact, she found his visage had mellowed. His milky voice sounded amicable enough.

"My only criticism is that you've contacted me rather late. Four years for your thesis, and Dr. Rudge mentioned that finals are due to start in two weeks."

Vicki cringed, about to lose her fleeting courage at the not-even-a-scold. She bit her lip.

"It hadn't even, uh, occurred to me that you'd allow me to interview inmates, such high profile ones in particular," she admitted. "Prof-_Dr_. Rudge only suggested it yesterday."

"I can see why you'd be skeptical," Dr. Crane chuckled, "I haven't even allowed the _Gotham Times_ in here for two years for so much as an obituary. I've found their reporters are often very inconsiderate of the inmates' health, more interested in sensationalism than anything else, but Dr. Rudge vouched for you as one of his most promising and empathetic students."

Vicki blushed at the praise, reveling in the glow of her professor's compliments.

"I would be surprised if he didn't try to get your work published," Crane added, fishing around in his pockets and pulling out a thin scrap of blue fabric. He polished his glasses, the harsh squeal of his fingers against the lenses deafening. "He told me he's to offer you a position in his graduate program, the one co-sponsored by Hale College of Law. I'm helping him set it up with a few inmates I think have been condemned by a prejudiced justice system."

He replaced the glasses back on his face; they magnified his already large eyes to bug-like proportions. Vicki couldn't even manage to find the effect funny; she was too aflutter with anxiety and exhilaration at the possibility of interviewing Arkham inmates. She lost some of her attention to detail in her perverse delight. Almost fanatical interest in detail was the quality she prized and boasted of most about her photography; yet she could not see Dr. Crane's bug-like eyes darting to all the exits, shrewdly calculating running times, how fast he could lock the door, and the possibility of being seen.

"One thing at a time," Vicki replied, endeavoring to sound as demure as possible. She fidgeted with the settings of her camera as she attempted to keep still.

Crane estimated a one-in-three probability that someone would come after Miss Vale—someone with enough power to endanger his work—and decided against experimenting with her.

"I'll be starting my job at _The Gotham Times _very soon, right after graduation, but I've seen the preliminary research you've done and it seems like you'll be doing more groundbreaking work," she gushed. "I would love to be a part of that."

"Then maybe you should skip the gossip rag and accept Dr. Rudge's offer," Dr. Crane hissed. His countenance stayed the same; the affable smile, the mild inattention as he pulled up his briefcase and started to rummage through it, but the vitriol in his voice made Vicki's heart skip a beat. Just as suddenly, his ire vanished and he pulled a sleek file folder out of his briefcase. He flipped through a couple of pages, ticking off names.

"Now, Dr. Rudge said you've been researching Caine Garrett, the Gulf War veteran with the dubious title of being my first Arkham patient." He chuckled at this as though it were funny; Vicki managed a guffaw ten seconds too late. "I can also get you Christopher Bale; he should be excited for a visit."

"What about Joshua Murphy," Vicki interjected, "the serial pedophile?"

"I'll check in on Mr. Murphy," Crane assured her, "but a student of your status should know that he has been diagnosed with _nepiophilia_, from the Greek 'nepon,' which means…" He let his chastisement trail off.

"Infant," Vicki finished. He nodded and snapped his briefcase shut, the echo sounding off in Vicki's ears like a marching band's drum roll.

"I'll go get those interviews set up for you Miss Vale, if you'll just wait here." He moved lithely up from his desk and whisked out of the office, leaving Vicki to stew in the isolation of white-washed walls and musty paper stacks that reeked of bleach and other chemicals Vicki could not place.

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Three hours later she was massaging bloody snot out of her hair in the sink of the bathroom of that same office.

The interview with Caine Krentz had been up first. He was a decorated Gulf War vet, a family man, a hero who came home and went on a killing spree, murdering twelve Arab-Americans and three Persians before he was apprehended. The key to getting his conviction overturned and transference to Arkham was that unlike most serial killers, he had no pattern. His insanity was triggered by a severe case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and condition changed radically according to his situation: seven of the killings took place in broad daylight, nine victims were gunned down, three were stabbed, two were hung and one was blown up by a crude pipe bomb that had been taped to his head.

Krentz was mild-mannered, his light brown hair interspersed with patches of gray on his head and in his beard. He was tired and jumpy, his entire body tensing at the smallest noise.

_Slow and quiet, that's the key_, Dr. Crane warned her.

The interview went off without a hitch. She used her most soothing voice to start off with questions about his children, which made him very responsive. When she felt a cough coming on, Vicki doused it with a yawn. She could only use the first shot of him she got because every time she clicked her camera, he startled, and she sensed that ambushing him too many times might set him off. The shot she managed was of Krentz holding his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, wiping tears from his eyes as he spoke of his oldest child, Abraham, leaving for college half way around the world just to get away from his father's horrifying memory.

Joshua Murphy had been next; he had been perhaps the most evasive of her subjects. She started out with "_Shall we get started?"_ and he responded with a comment about how much she resembled a doll. It was a valid observation, one that was made often. Her doe-brown eyes, golden curls, and ashen porcelain-like features made the comparison a go-to icebreaker. Ironic, since it always made her clam up. She followed with a question about his current level of satisfaction with Arkham, to which he answered with an expression of sadness that they hadn't met seventeen years ago, because then he might have been _satisfied_.

"Well, by then I was five, and none of your victims were above three," she shot back coolly. Instead of making a face or turning away to hide her disgust from him, she rolled her eyes and took his picture. He wasn't grinning like a sadist or foaming at the mouth like normal Arkham inmates; it was a close-up of his face, pensive after her reply. Perhaps goading him like that was a little unethical—revealing personal information to prisoners was a big no-no. It was a spur of the moment thing, and the way his face was streaked with shadow made the photograph a shoe-in for the cover page of her thesis.

Christopher Bale was her last, a paranoid schizophrenic who'd beaten two younger siblings to death and put one into a coma when he was 16. Vicki almost felt sorry for him when she saw his emaciated state; years of constantly wearing the metal handcuffs had worn down to stick-thin proportions. He seemed to drift in and out of full consciousness. Dr. Crane encouraged her to play along with his fantasies, to acquiesce to his seemingly harmless requests. Misleading advice on Dr. Crane's part.

Bale had asked to see her hair; Vicki pulled it out of the ponytail. She responded to his random complaints as though the 'Scarecrow'he spoke of was a real entity, but maintained it wasn't coming for him. Vicki found that mentioning the 'Scarecrow' only served to agitate him and when she pulled out her camera, he spat at the lens. To protect it, she whirled around and hunched over, catching the blow of saliva in her net of hair.

_Fuck my angelic curls_, Vicki thought to herself as she held the assaulted locks under a jet of icy water and combed through them with her fingers. At least she'd gotten her shot, of—Bale surrounded by the guards, looking up at them petrified with fear and wretchedness, just before he started to yell and writhe into a tantrum.

"Miss Vale?" Dr. Crane called in to the bathroom, smothered amusement laced in his tone. Vicki growled inaudibly and shut off the faucet, walking back into the office with what was left of her dignity. "I'm very sorry about Mr. Bale's behavior; it seems I underestimated his excitability. He doesn't get many visitors."

"That's all right," Vicki assured him, grabbing her jacket from the chair and slipping it on. She dabbed at her forehead with her sleeve as she gathered her recorder, purse and camera from Dr. Crane's desk. Waiting for her back at her dorm room was a functional AC system, one of the many things Arkham did not possess. She vaguely wondered how the resident doctors could perform their duties in the ever-present humidity of the asylum.

Having lived in Gotham her entire life, Vicki Vale had been raised to embrace one of the three prevailing attitudes about crime. A Gothamite could accept that crime happened and try to stay out of its trajectory; they could immerse themselves in it, or they could walk the fine line and stay alive as long as they were able to. Vicki had never even so much as shoplifted. Not because she was goody-goody, but because her funky West Coast aunt had imbued her with a belief in karma. However, after spending three hours in Arkham during a heat wave, she began to feel a measure of sympathy for the criminals who managed to get caught.

Dr. Crane blocked the exit, filling it up with his considerable shoulder width.

"I can't communicate how much I'm encouraging you to accept Dr. Rudge's offer," he murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder, meaning it to be comforting. It unnerved Vicki and she shrugged backwards out of his hold. He didn't acknowledge her hostility. "Helping these men recover and turn their lives around is very enriching," he continued slowly, leaning against the door frame, barring his teeth as he continued his warning. "I doubt that becoming a vapid, _bottom-feeding_ journalist will satisfy you as much as working on your doctorate. At least in Arkham, the danger is behind bars for certain. Out on the streets, hunting a story, a girl like you would be very vulnerable." His voice had shrunken down all the way into a husky whisper.

"I'm not scared of the streets," Vicki mumbled, meeting his gaze. "I know my way around."

"Then what _are_ you afraid of?" Crane implored, leaning down until his face was a mere inch away from her own.

He was rapidly rethinking his plan to leave her alone, to let her out of his grasp. Despite the insensibility of taking her, the thought of seeing her doe-brown eyes widen in fear made him lustful, feral, even. Vicki backed away, biting her lip; he moved forward. She repeated the move; so did he. Vicki closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"… Missing a deadline," she ground out, shoving past him and out the door, practically running the moment she escaped from the labyrinthine office system. Passing the unsuspecting asylum secretary and two burnt-out orderlies, she managed to collide full-on with three police officers and a prisoner. There was no domino effect; the officers were so strong, Vicki felt as though she'd bounced off of a brick wall.

One of the officers helped her up off of the floor as she tried to regain her wind.

"Wha's the rush, girl?" he asked with a heavy 'Little Italy' accent. Vicki clutched at her camera to make sure that it was safe and slowed her breathing, shooting the officer her most earnest look.

"Well, this is a pretty creepy place, isn't it?" Vicki forced herself to laugh. The officer smiled and patted her on the back before turning back to his group. Vicki leaned over to study the other officers and realized that the man in handcuffs was wearing street clothes—a plaid shirt and torn jeans. He studied her in return, his smooth young features contorted with anger, coal black hair hanging limply in his face.

"I see you've met Miss Vale, Arthur." Crane appeared on the scene out of nowhere, looking unruffled, polishing his glasses once more. "Miss Vale, this is Officer Paoletti. Arthur, this is Vicki Vale, one of Dr. Rudge's students at Gotham University."

"I was wonderin' what a pretty thing like you was doin' round this place?" Paoletti remarked, patting her on the back again, his touch lingering like a father's.

"You must be escorting Gotham's newest guest," Crane remarked, ignoring Vicki in order to scrutinize the handcuffed man. Vicki shivered; the guy looked to be her age, like a pretentious bohemian she could have known from her Political Science 235 lecture. "Thomas Schiff, paranoid schizophrenic, arrested for…" His memory faltered.

"Manslaughter!" Schiff barked, leaning around Paoletti and lunging at Crane. Schiff released a stream of garbled words as two of the officers seized him before maneuvering him around a corner and out of sight. Vicki squinted into the darkness after them, the dim luminosity of the lights beginning to get to her. Crane chuckled; the sound of his gratification ground on Vicki's nerves more than the echoes of Schiff's screams bouncing off the moldy concrete. Vicki was suddenly aware that someone was speaking to her.

"… But that's what we pinned on him," Paoletti was saying. He turned to Crane. "Was that Sebastian Armstrong I saw on the release sheet, the klepto? I think I arrested him twice for grand larceny. He can't be out, can he?"

The chorus of moaning and shrieking, banging and rattling was getting to be too much for Vicki, and she flew out of the asylum as soon as she sensed she was out of the men's frame of mind.

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In her panic, she missed a turn and was soon unable to find her way out. Turning back was out of the question. Although Dr. Crane had not directly threatened her, nor tried to stop her from leaving, she was determined that that he was, at best case, eccentric and at worst, as crazy-dangerous as the nut jobs he tended to.

Bordering on hysteria, Vicki managed to wander into a gruff, sour-faced guard who led her to a back exit and escorted her past the wire fence surrounding the interior grounds of the asylum. Now barely visible above the Gotham skyline, the sun was beginning to set, flaring orange and yellow in the west while blue and gray began to meld together in the East. Vicki jogged toward the back gate, stumbling a few times, but managing to generate the caress of air that rushed past her and cooled sweat soaked body.

The asylum's gate was only present for posterity's sake; it couldn't prevent the break-out of anyone who was sane enough to attempt it, or prevent a break-in by anyone insane enough to try it.

_Fuck a puck…_ she thought to herself, skittering to a halt. Vicki realized that she'd left her cab waiting back on the opposite side of Arkham and that her cell phone did not get reception in the Narrows, the area where cell phone reception came in _most_ handy, and, of course, the area in which she now found herself. She made a mental note to cancel her cell phone contract. She glanced back at the looming structure of Arkham Asylum and then forward into the darkness of the Narrows. _The gate is just up ahead_, Vicki thought to herself, trying to stabilize her dread. _It can't be any more than half a mile until the next monorail entrance, and all I have to do is… stay alive. _

Vicki had only been in the Narrows twice in her life, once with her father and once on a dare during her freshman year of college. It was a slum of the worst kind—where you only traveled in groups; where sleeping homeless could have just as easily been dead; and where she'd witnessed her first gang beating. It was the first area to be consumed by the criminal underworld after the depression and back again after the demise of Thomas Wayne and his campaign to clean up the city.

Her hike began anew. Every time one of her shoes hit the pavement, her body began to tense just like Krentz's had at the slightest noise. The sound of her patent ballet flats scuffing against the asphalt road seemed exponentially louder than it had before she'd entered the Narrows. It was ridiculous.

_This isn't getting you very far, Vale_, she laughed to herself, trying to suppress her fright.

The outline of a lean man formed out of the darkness in front of her under the glow of the lamps over the Arkham gate. Hunched forward, ambling at the pace of a lethargic old man, the man turned his head toward her just as a hysterical giggle escaped Vicki's lips. She froze. The man's amble slowed to a stop and he twisted to face her.

_Distinct facial features_… Vicki could hear Crane musing in her head about the released patient, _Sebastian… something or other, Armstrong_? she thought. This guy's face had been sliced so that his mouth was locked in a perpetual smile. The wounds were recent; even from a distance she could make out how bulbous the scar tissue still was.

Fight or flight. Every Psych 101 student knew that those were the two impulses animals experienced when confronted with danger. Since Vicki was a girl, her emotions and thought processes were therefore complicated, causing her to possess some measure of overconfident stupidity. As she figured that she'd already used all the flight tokens she had for the night, she decided it was time for the fight impulse to take over for a while. She started moving again, keeping her stare just past who she could only assume was Sebastian and on the wrought iron bars of the gate. Then her stupidity took over.

His gaze stayed bolted on her, his countenance glowering and his motives unreadable. When Vicki reached him, she held out her hand.

"Mr. Armstrong?" Her voice came out like a squeak, and she flushed red as she cleared her throat. "Ahem, I'm Vicki…" Not obtuse enough to give him her real name, she knew she had half a second to come up with a fake surname. Three names flashed through her mind: Gordon, her Russian Lit professor; Knox, her editor at the campus paper, _The Daily Gotham_; or Schiff, the newest schizophrenic in Arkham. "… Vicki Knox, of the _Gotham Times_," she finished lamely.

Sebastian didn't shake her hand; his arms were jammed in the pockets of his ratty brown jacket. He stared at her outstretched hand until she withdrew it and went for her recorder.

"I'm doing an article on Arkham's reliability as a reform establishment, and I was hoping I could ask you some questions about your experiences there, as opposed to in a regular prison." That wasn't a total lie.

Sebastian just stared at her chest, at the camera nestled against her chest, half-hidden her cascade of hair. He remained silent, every moment that passed mushrooming the level of awkwardness Vicki felt to new heights as she fumbled with her recorder. Just as she opened her mouth to repeat the question, he finally spoke.

"You wanna take my picture, too?" His voice was gravel-like, uneven, nasal, but at the same time tranquil… it made her skin crawl with revulsion, giving her goose bumps and causing her hair to stand on end. Vicki took an unconscious step away, trying to recover her wits and biting her lip again.

"I-I… If-that's-all-right-with-you," she stammered. He smiled, utilizing his mutilated flesh to full effect, his mouth curling into a devilish, close-lipped grin. Vicki's knuckles turned white as she gripped her camera hard, trying to remember how it worked. She snapped a shot; it wasn't right. Not unsettling enough to match his demeanor face-to-face. Another shot; the same problem. Taking a step to the side, she snapped another shot. This time the lighting shadowed his entire face, highlighting his decrepit clothing and the hunch of his shoulders. Her fear was overtaken by frustration long enough for her to grumble and curse under her breath.

He laughed at her, a jerky, high-pitched shriek of a laugh that startled Vicki so much that she let out a tiny yelp and dropped her recorder. As she squatted down to retrieve it, she kept her widened eyes on him. His head was thrown back, body shaking with the force of his laughter.

"Having trouble?" he chortled, displaying his teeth in all their yellowing glory. Vicki trembled so hard she could feel her camera colliding with her chest as she jerked back to her feet. "Don't be so serious," he soothed, his voice rising drastically in pitch and making him sound like a demented school child.

"Got it," she said, her voice breaking a bit. She tapped her camera to emphasize the point. Breathing in a gulp of air for courage, she held forth her recorder again. "M-Mr. Armstrong, why were you admitted to Arkham?"

"I don't know," he drawled, the high pitch of his voice even more pronounced as his muffled giggles continued. "I was just having some fun with my friends, and then some gloomy cop _hits me_ with a baton and says he's gonna mess me up good." He shook his head, tone dripping with manufactured sincerity. "Not a happy camper, _not… at… all_."

Sebastian's most unnerving quality, aside from his disheveled physical state, interminable stare, and shrieking laughter, was that he kept the same diabolic grin plastered on his face throughout their exchange. In her head, Vicki immediately diagnosed him with sociopathic tendencies; not a full-blown sociopath, though—they tended to be narcissistic, and this creep didn't seem to care for his appearance in the least.

"What makes you _laugh_, _Ms. Knox_?" he asked, licking his lips over again and drawing out the syllables in her alias. "You're acting tense, but I bet you're a _fun_ girl."

"I don't know…" Vicki answered, not sure what else to do. "Comedy Central, irony, Mel Gibson in _Braveheart_…"

Sebastian let out another inhuman shriek of laughter, and she took another step back, biting her lip again. She flinched and when she put her fingers to her mouth, she discovered she'd gnawed through the tender red flesh.

"Oh, I like you," he growled, taking a step toward her. Vicki instinctually moved back, pursing her lips to hide her wound. _I need a new move_, she thought to herself, noticing that the red light on her recorder was still blinking, clutched tight in her fist. She decided that her biggest problem was her tendency to stay stationery in the face of peril, which might have seemed like a valiant move under different circumstance, but she knew this was a ludicrous one. Flight was looking like a better and better option with each breath Sebastian wheezed in and out. "I bet Sebastian would have too, whoever he is…"

"You mean, you're not…?" Vicki trailed off, heart dropping into her stomach as she realized that this man was not Sebastian Armstrong, and she had no idea what he was capable of.

His hand snatched out, gripping the fist holding her recorder and jerking her towards him. Vicki gasped, knocking into the man's chest and taking in a full breath of his foul scent. He took his thumb and put it to her lips, spreading the blood from her wound around her mouth as if it were lipstick. She was struck by the sensation of his jagged nail against her skin and desperately tried to yank away from him. She turned her head away from his eyes, which were shadowed coal-black in the dark.

"Ya wanna know how I got these scars?" Without looking up, Vicki knew he was laughing. She felt the vibrations of his chest, heaving with each cackle.

A gunshot whizzed by them, hitting the asphalt somewhere far off in the darkness. Vicki felt the sensation of being jerked by the arm again and her vision blurred as she was dragged and flung into the shotgun seat of a car. The last she saw of the merry prankster was through the back window of the care, the man rolling on the ground and clutching at his stomach as he screeched gaily into the dark. Of all the things to contemplate—the grave danger, the chaos of the night, who the hell had grabbed her _now_—Vicki could think only one thing as the car sped off.

_That's my shot! _Vicki tried to finagle her camera to capture the lunatic in all his mirth, but the car made a sharp left and she was jostled off balance.

She turned to the driver; Sergeant James Gordon disregarded her in favor of navigating out of the Narrows with haste. A tiny vein in his temple was pulsing from stress.

"I suppose you're thinking about how convenient it is that I showed up to save you," he stated, as they neared the edge of midtown, "when I should be at home eating mashed potatoes and some combination of bratwurst and barbeque sauce."

"I suppose I mentioned to Professor Gordon I would be visiting Arkham-"

"Which means you're not as bright as Barbara seems to think you are," he cut in. "And for God's sake, put your goddamn seatbelt on!" Vicki meekly obeyed and surreptitiously wiped the blood from her mouth onto the back of her hand. They sat in silence for the next ten minutes until she recognized Rossi's Delicatessen at the intersection of 56th and Collins. "Barb said your parents lived somewhere around here…?"

"Two streets over, the Carlisle building on Dumott," Vicki replied, sucking at her wound so he wouldn't notice it. Gordon parked the car in front of the building where Vicki had grown up—Carlisle Heights, 568 Dumott, Apartment 6A. He cut the engine and the lights, unfastened his seatbelt and sighed. It was a great heaving sigh, the kind you imagined Atlas making whenever he shifted the world around on his shoulders, or the sound God makde when someone started another war over a biblical footnote. The pair lingered in their seats until Vicki reached for her door handle.

"Did you exchange names?" Vicki shook her head. "Did he take anything from you?" She shook her head. "Then just forget it," Gordon concluded, temper stretched to the point of exhaustion. "Whatever you saw there, whatever he said to you, just forget it, and don't go back there."

"Mr. Gordon-"

"It's _Sergeant_ Gordon, and don't forget that," he barked. "Arkham is a can of worms a little girl like you shouldn't open. And if you try, you will get _hurt_, I guarantee it. You're lucky you're not already dead... What on earth were you thinking?" Astonishment took over for his rebuking. "Did you just strike up a conversation with an Arkham inmate for fun?"

"He was released today," Vicki corrected, regretting the excuse as she said it. Even if prison made a difference in a town like Gotham, she wasn't even sure he'd been from Arkham. Hanging around might have just been his recreational activity. "I got lost and missed the exit, okay? Everything was fine before that," she lied. Vicki chanced a look at him; his benevolent eyes saw right through her subterfuge, but he elected not to press the issue.

"Look, they hold classes at the gym on Thursdays for girls like you to learn to… to fight or fend off a mugger or something, but the first rule to self defense is to keep yourself out of danger in the first place. Can a Pandora like you manage that, at least?"

"Detective Gordon, you've seen the conditions they live in, the weird shit that goes on there. The fact that they're _letting_ a guy like that back on the street…" Vicki pleaded with him. "Someone has to-"

"No!"

"You _have_ to let me-"

"I told you, forget it!" he insisted, waving his hand at her. "Use selective memory. Curl up with a Valium, concentrate on your Dostoyevsky and the next morning you won't remember a thing." Vicki raised an eyebrow at him. "Barb does it whenever my mother visits," Gordon explained, "numbs the brain. Now she loves my mother."

"Anterograde amnesia _is_ a symptom of diazepam, which is marketed as Valium," Vicki muttered, reciting it off the top of her head. It was Gordon's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I'm taking Schleicher's psychopharmacology course," she explained.

"That reminds me…" And just like that, the dead serious air of warning drained out of the car, replaced by familiarity and warmth. "Barbara said she'll suspend your final paper and give you an 'A' if you watch Jimmy and Babs for us onFriday around 6."

"Done." As much as Vicki adored her Russian Literature professor, Vicki much preferred the gonzo stylings of Hunter S. Thompson to novels written before 1900 by pretentious Russians. Sensing the exchange was over, she slid out of the car and fumbled for her keys. "Guess my parents are getting a surprise sleep over," she called over her shoulder.

"Parents love that kind of thing," Gordon replied as he revved the engine.

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Once she was inside, Vicki developed her photos in a make-shift dark room as her mother reheated beef stroganoff, whistling a jaunty tune in delight at having her daughter home for the night. She tucked the photo of Sebastian, or whoever he was, into a file of random or rejected photos, and then stole a dose of her mother's Valium left over from Vicki's grandmother's death last April. Nestling into bed to breach her copy of _Crime and Punishment_, Vicki slept soundly and awoke the next morning with only a blurry recollection of the events at Arkham.

Somewhere in the Narrows that night, a body was found in a warehouse. The real Sebastian Armstrong's eyes were open and he had a smile sliced onto his face.


	2. The Merchant Prince, Gone To Dust

A/N: I decided to continue. Just because it's so fun to bridge the gap between _Begins_ and _Knight_. I'm going to take a little time to build up to the main action, but the Joker will always be present in the chapter in some form. The rating is upped because Vicki has a dirtier mouth than a sailor.

Btw, to the reviewer who complained about Sue-ish-ness: Thank you for the criticism, but I don't consciously think about Sues. In fact I think that if a story is well written enough, a Sue is forgiveable. Vicki's doll face becomes a plot point. And she's not that intelligent (anyone who doesn't just run away from the Joker without some sort of gun _can't_ be all that smart); she's just curious and therefore knowledgeable.

Thank you to everyone else too!

**

* * *

**

**CHAPTER TWO: The Merchant Prince Gone To Dust**

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"Tomb of a millionaire,  
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,  
Place of the dead where they spend every year  
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars  
For upkeep and flowers  
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.  
The merchant prince gone to dust…"

_Graceland_, by Carl Sandburg

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"_Victoria, it's been a pleasure. Hope I wasn't too, ah, _stiff_ for you." – Bruce Wayne_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

Five months later, after Vicki had sworn never to go back to Arkham—not even to the Narrows, for that matter—she found herself, early on a Wednesday morning, at the same entrance where she'd encountered the creepy presumed-criminal. And she was not alone.

"_Please_…" Julian Knox was ten seconds from getting back on his knees to get her to go inside the asylum. "I told you, Dr. Crane's not gonna let me in unless you're with me!"

"Did he say that?"

"He didn't budge an inch until I mentioned that I was bringing a photog. He asked if it was you, I said yes, and he budged a whole mile and agreed to let me in!"

"Julian, don't you have that blurb about, I dunno, some clown robbery to do…?" When he sensed her resolve was wearing off, Julian got down on his knees, folding his hands as though in reverent prayer, and bowed his head to her.

Vicki snapped a picture of him in that stance, because she would need proof for her friends that Julian Alexander Knox was this desperate for _her_ help.

Julian was an excessively pompous ass. Four months ago, when he was her student editor and could abuse her according to his whims, this would never have happened. Two months ago when they'd both started jobs at the same level, bottom of the rung at _The_ _Gotham_ _Times_, he still lorded over her even though he was only writing blurbs and obituaries. Three weeks ago, after a little too much tequila and a frustrated, ill-advised one-night stand with her, Knox still wouldn't have deigned to acknowledge her in front of his fraternity brothers.

Vicki shouldn't have even entertained the notion of entering Arkham again. Julian had only gotten her to Arkham by being vague about an assignment, ushering her into a cab, and directing it towards the Narrows in a roundabout sort of way. The cab driver refused to go farther than Welch Street and then, through excessive begging and physical dragging, he'd gotten her to Arkham with his balls more or less intact.

Just the fact that Dr. Crane was willing, no, _wanted_ to see her again was enough to validate Vicki's qualms. Yet… the curious side of Vicki was longing to get back inside the asylum. With Julian as her back-up, Crane wouldn't be able to pull his intimidation tactics, and Julian, despite being the most maddening jackass this side of Donald Trump, had his heart in the right place. In a bid to get her to go in with him, he'd grudgingly admitted that his whole idea for an exposé on the conditions of Arkham Asylum began when he overheard Vicki relating the dissolution of her friendship with Dr. Rudge to their colleague, editorialist Constance B. Mooreston. Not only that, but Julian was good. In his initial interviews for the exposé, he'd gotten Dr. Rudge to admit to some dubious dealings with Gotham Police Department when he'd freed Arkham's first "cured" patient, Street Watkins, who'd gone on to murder seven people upon release. If anyone could crack Crane, it was Julian.

"Why don't you wanna see him, anyway?" Julian asked, throwing his hands down in frustration. "Did you sleep with him or something?"

And just like that, Julian lost his Arkham exposé forever.

"God, you loathsome son of a bitch!" Vicki ever so gently punted her foot between his knees and Julian crumpled to the sidewalk, cursing at the top of his voice. "You just had to go there, didn't you," Vicki snarled, sidestepping him and marching toward the shaky monorail system. Upkeep on the tracks on the Narrows' side was spotty at best, but Vicki didn't have enough money for both a cab all the way back to the uptown office, and dinner that night at her flat in Reatton. She momentarily debated whether or not to wait up and make sure Julian didn't get mugged in his injured state, but "A Hard Day's Night" blasted from her cell phone before she could make the decision.

"Vale," she answered, snapping it open. "The Narrows, don't ask… I got him back for it… I need to take the mono, I can't afford a cab… Why-… _You're fucking kidding me! Holy motherfucking piss shit!_ Nuh-uh! You cunt, if you are joking… _No_, no-no-no, I'm on it, _I'm so fucking on it_!"

"On what?" Julian groaned, still bent over in pain with his hands braced on his knees. In her sudden jubilation, Vicki grabbed his hand and started running toward Welch Street, where the cabs started lining up again. "What? Where are we going?"

"We just got the best tip of our lives," Vicki trilled, unleashing his hand once she was sure he was following. She didn't even break pace as she loped over a man sleeping—or possibly dead—on the sidewalk. "I'm talking big break, _huge_…" Julian sped up and they ran side by side.

"Bigger trouble," he interrupted, jerking his head behind them. Vicki chanced a glimpse back; three thugs were running after them. That was thug mentality: if two well dressed people were running like their lives depended on it, they must be worth something; but even being pursued by hardened criminals wasn't enough to dampen Vicki's mood. "So what's… the big tip…?" Julian huffed as they continued the chase.

"_Bruce Wayne is back!_"

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"And now I have to report a mugging, get a new 'House of Pies' gift certificate, get my ribs checked out, _and_ explain that cab ride to Barnes. I can't believe you just left me there."

"I had a plan."

"You _told_ them they couldn't mug you, how is that a fucking _plan_?"

"Distraction. It would have worked, if you hadn't tried to play tough guy."

"I was trying to protect you-"

"If you didn't want to get mugged, you shouldn't have gone down to the Narrows. _Everybody_ knows that," Vicki admonished, drawing out the syllables in 'everybody.' Julian didn't reply, because he knew it was true. He sagged down further in his chair and sulked, shooting the secretary a livid scowl as though _she_ were the one keeping Bruce Wayne locked up in Mr. Earle's office.

The thugs had caught up and taken Julian's wallet, but when they went for Vicki, she informed them straight out that they weren't allowed to mug her since she'd been dragged to the Narrows against her will. The sheer nerve it took to say that shocked them until Vicki could start running again, but the thugs had been able to give Julian a good thrashing until a meatier bust came along.

After hopping a cab uptown to Wayne Tower, both the aspiring journalists fumbled around the elevators, trying to avoid security, until a kind old secretary pointed them in the direction of Earle's office. They managed to find the tail-end of a board meeting letting out, but Mr. Wayne was already gone. Julian interviewed two willing board members, who gave him a skeletal account of Mr. Wayne flirting with the secretary and marching suavely in to observe the rest of the proceedings.

"How did you get this tip, anyway?" Julian whispered, leaning over as Vicki adjusted the settings on her camera for the luminous corridors of the corporate building.

"You know Peggy, the sub-editor?" Julian nodded. "She and I were in the same Russian Lit class in college," Vicki continued, eyes darting over to make sure Earle's secretary wasn't paying attention. No worry; she was paying close attention to her work, typing zealously. "She got a tip from her mother, who's an accountant here and heard from one of her colleagues that the butler, Pennyworth, took the private jet for a jaunt to Bhutan out of the blue, so she got suspicious. Then today, rumor had it that Wayne had waltzed back in here and Peg's mom figured we'd want to know about it, so she called Peg, and Peg called me."

"Shit, you're lucky," Julian breathed. Vicki rolled her eyes at him. "Vaughan's gonna kill you," he continued, referring to the top senior photographer at the _Times_, and Vicki's unofficial rival.

"We're in the same boat," Vicki snapped under her breath. "I'm cozy with Mooreston, but she's going to disembowel you when she finds out you stole her story. Society is her beat."

"It's not society," he retorted. "It's economics. That councilman, Schneider, said Earle's taking Wayne Enterprises public; you don't honestly think the heir to 6.3 billion is going to let that slide, do you? Betcha 50 dollars that Wayne's in there losing his shit," Julian asserted. Vicki quelled the devastating urge to reach over, shove her camera into his mouth and make him swallow it. She avoided it, for the sake of her camera.

The doors opened and the two journalists jumped up.

"I'll have Jessica set up your security code and you can start A-S-A-P," the elder gentleman was saying, shaking hands with Bruce Wayne. "And I'll have someone escort you down there."

Vicki's breath caught in her throat when she set eyes on Gotham's modern-day Adonis. The pictures she'd seen of him in the paper when she was fifteen, of the 'Gotham Prince' storming from the courtroom where his parents' killer was released, hadn't done him any justice. Vicki vowed to change that.

Bruce Wayne was, without contest, the most gorgeous and ravishing man she'd ever seen in her short 23 years of life—not that he'd had much competition. The first thing she noticed was that his face was incredibly symmetrical. You couldn't achieve those results if you had a slab of marble, the most delicate measuring instruments available to man, and a laser cutter. Wayne was a visually perfect subject. She took into account his chiseled features—the strong chin, high cheekbones, and a slim, straight nose rounded at the end. His lips were sort of thin, but the pinkish hue and his charismatic smile made all the difference. These features made him aesthetically pleasing, but his sleek persona, the air of confidence he held within his perfect posture and six-foot-four body, were what made Vicki weak at the knees. Literally.

She felt herself drifting and bumped into Julian, who elbowed her and shot her a wide-eyed, 'What-the-fuck' look.

"That's be alright, Earle," Wayne assured him, "I think I can find my way down there by myself. Just go straight down to the basement, right?"

"That's right Mr. Wayne," Earle replied, forcing a chuckle even as he yanked his hand away from Wayne's.

_Politics. Gross…_ Vicki rolled her eyes to herself as she observed the two men. Her hands were itching to take a shot, imagining the caption, '_Mr. Hitler, er, Earle, unhappy that someone is challenging his mad quest for power',_ but she decided to mollify Julian and let him lead on this one.

"Excuse me, Mr. Wayne?" Julian marched straight up to the pair and offered his hand. Vicki had a chilling bout of déjà vu as Wayne just stared at the outstretched arm, raising his perfectly arched eyebrow at the young upstart. Wayne did shake his hand, as Earle hurried into his lair, er, office and shut the doors with a deafening _THUD_. "I'm Julian Knox, with _The Gotham Times_. I'd like to ask you a couple of question about your sudden return to Gotham." For all his fancy, pretentious wordplay, excitement sometimes made Julian sort of tactless.

"Do you actually mean 'a couple' of questions, or should I sit down for this?" Wayne asked, bemusement sliding across his flawless face. His eyes kept flickering over to Vicki and the door in between words; he was clearly uninterested in sitting down for an interview.

"It's up to you how many questions you'd like to answer, Mr. Wayne," Julian told him, turning on his recorder and grabbing his notepad out of his back pocket. _Oh Julian,_ now_ you decide to have tact,_ Vicki thought to herself. "Now Mr. Wayne, I'm sure the first thing my readers will want to know is where you've been-"

"You never introduced your friend." Wayne, blithely ignoring Julian, strode over to Vicki with all of his glorious, six-foot-four self. Out of stupid nervous habit, she bit her lip when he smiled at her with a disarming grin. "And you would be…?"

"Victoria Vale," she replied demurely, amazed that she still possessed the ability to vocalize niceties. "Intrepid _Times_ photographer. I'm with him," she said, waving a hand at her speechless and much-offended co-worker. Wayne didn't let go of her hand.

"I certainly hope not," he sniggered, bringing her hand up to his lips and planting a minute kiss that lingered almost too long to be considered just a peck. "For my sake at least…"

_Stop gaping at him, it just makes you look like a fish! Come on Vale, focus, say something, anything. Ask him for a photo, ask him how Bhutan treated him, compliment him on how fucking symmetrical he is, just say SOMETHING, for the love of Vishnu!_ Vicki could all but hear her inner monologue ringing in her ears, shrieking at her.

"_With_ Julian? Oh, God, no," Vicki giggled, letting her hand drop to her side. "Not if my life depended on it."

"Thanks for that glowing review, Vick," Julian interjected, clenching his hands at his side, sidling over and trying to insert himself into the conversation. He was attempting to gain back some measure of masculinity, which was difficult considering that Wayne was a good six inches taller than him. "Mr. Wayne, do you mind if we take a photograph?"

"Go ahead, I don't mind," he said, keeping an alluring eye trained on Vicki as though he were determined to get her insides to melt out her through her toes. It took a few seconds for Vicki to process everything and she started to fumble with her camera. She adjusted the settings, then readjusted them when she realized they were right the first time, and backed away. She snapped a generic shot of Wayne smiling at the camera, but she hated it even before the flash went off. Although Vicki tried to give her subjects the courtesy of knowing that they were being photographed, she hated shots that looked too posed. It seemed Bruce Wayne could do nothing except pose. He was even immune to her trick where she snapped her fingers away from the lens, so that her subject's eyes were at least off-center. He didn't even flinch, and she was only left embarrassed when it didn't work.

"Julian, just do the interview now," she declared, keeping her eyes away from Wayne, lest he enthrall her again. "My apologies, Mr. Wayne, but try to relax. You look kind of… stiff." When Wayne subtly wiggled his eyebrows at her, she picked up on the sexual innuendo and cringed.

"Mr. Wayne, the last reports of your whereabouts place you in South Hinkley, and before that, in the restaurant 'Club Lago', known hangout of Mob boss Carmine Falcone. Do you confirm or deny this?" Vicki studied Wayne's reaction; he never stopped smiling, never visibly tensed, didn't even look irritated at Julian's off-putting question, but his eyes narrowed.

"Falcone? The name rings a bell…" Wayne folded his arms and rubbed his chin as though he were deep in thought. Vicki snapped that shot; still not very good. She began rotating around the two men, experimenting with backgrounds and angles that would be good for Wayne. He turned back to her again. "I hope you got my good side Victoria," he said, smiling, his hand reaching down to undo the top button of his suit.

"Mr. Wayne, you're so symmetrical that either side is good," she prattled, snapping a shot.

"Is that a compliment?"

Vicki nodded, but didn't reply; she practically broke into a cold sweat when she realized how insipid she sounded. _No more eye contact…_

"Uh, Mr. Wayne? The question," Julian reminded him.

The rest of the interview proceeded in the much the same cycle. Julian quizzed Wayne about Falcone, why he'd skipped town, why he'd been in Bhutan, his plans now that he was back in Gotham, his opinion about Earle taking the company public, and even about Joe Chill's abrupt murder following the suspension of his sentence after agreeing to testify against Falcone. For the most part, Wayne was extremely unresponsive and distracted by Vicki. She snapped a few more photos of him in various stages of standing, but none seemed good enough. Finally, when yet another bout of conversation led to Wayne flirting and Vicki twittering some nonsense about lighting, Julian had had enough.

"All right, I think we're done here," Julian muttered, jotting down one last note and turning off his recorder. "Welcome back to Gotham, Mr. Wayne."

"Thank you, Mr. Knox," Wayne replied, shaking his hand in agreement to the figurative ceasefire. "Victoria, it's been a pleasure. Hope I wasn't too, ah, _stiff_ for you."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

To: "Victoria Vale"  
From: "Barbara Gordon"  
Subject: Saw It In The Paper!

_Vicki,_

_I saw your first front-page photo in the paper! Looks like you're climbing up the ranks. It was fantastic, of course, and you managed to make him look like a real human guy. The article wasn't all that great; it had a lot of speculation, but hardly any concrete facts. Did you talk to Mr. Wayne?_

_Quality at _The Daily Gotham_ has sunk a bit since you graduated, maybe you should visit campus and show them how it's really done. How is Peggy? She never answers her email anymore. And Julian? Still as pretentious as you two ranted about? You all must have gotten a little closer; you're the only graduates on the paper who stayed in Gotham._

_Your entire study group has left. I got an email from Jake; he's teaching English in the Ukraine these days. He's doing a lot of volunteer work to help stop sex trafficking; I've donated a little to his organization. Anna's doing some graduate work at Indiana State; Nick is working on the cure for AIDS or something, I'm not really sure, but he's starting at Johns Hopkins; Harleen is doing med school somewhere in the Midwest, but she said she might be transferring closer to Gotham; and the only other one I know of is Tatiana, writing her first novel, holed up with her grandma in Bulgaria… I keep wondering if she and Jake will get together, since (1) they're on the same continent and (2) they kept sleeping together during the semester (although both of them still scored better than you would have, I bet, :P)._

_My liaison at the college in Moscow is shipping me a first-edition copy of Ivan Bunin's_ 'The Dark Avenues'_; I know you won't care, but I had to share that with someone and I just got the email. Jim doesn't seem all that excited; can't imagine why…_

_Sorry if this is too much Russian for you, I'll digress: have you read '_The Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test'_, by Tom Wolfe? Sounded like your kind of thing. I still think Hunter Thompson is creepier than any of the writers I taught you about; he's the blight on journalism, not Mike Engle, but you're the journalist, I guess. You're always attracted to the most dubious elements (just kidding—I tried to abbreviate it, but I think text speak is ruining the English language)._

_Jim sends his regards; he also said that you're not allowed to take any photos for that Mazzala writer, the one who wrote that piece about Falcone. I swear he had a little aneurysm when he found out you took that picture, which meant that you were in the same room with a mob boss. Anyway, feel free to ignore him; if it were up to Jim, all you'd be doing is taking pictures of bunny rabbits and lollipops. Not a lot of trenchant, skeptical journalism to be found in those areas though._

_Dr. Rudge also sends his regards. Did you two have a thing and I missed it?_

_Gotta go; Babs is starting her first day of Jujitsu and I'm afraid she'll break Jimmy's arm if I don't get her out of here. Email me back soon._

_Best wishes,  
Barbara_

_P.S. Still haven't found a babysitter, but that's okay. Jim works too much; sometimes I wish he was just a little corrupt…_

Barbara Gordon  
Professor  
Office of English  
University of Gotham  
420 University Terrace  
Gotham, IN 98138-0682

Tel: (312) 555-5358  
Fax: (312) 555-5383

* * *

To: "Barbara Gordon"  
From: "Victoria Vale"  
Subject: Re: Saw It In The Paper!

_Professor Gordon (Barbara just doesn't sound right!),_

_Thank you sooooo much! My parents blew a gasket when I told them about it and then they tried to buy out 'Betty's House of Pies' for a party night so that they could parade me around in front of their friends. Luckily, I pulled out their checkbooks and they reneged. It's my first big break; I'm even in the big "Official Times Photographers Club" (which only means that Vaughan and DiBella will acknowledge me when we cross paths in the break room from now on). I'm even getting requests from some of the writers. We're getting a new editor soon, word is that she's pretty tough. The thought is depressing me._

_Don't blame Julian for the article quality (just the headline, "Gotham's Prodigal Prince"… Alliteration, really, Julian?). Mr. Wayne kept flirting with me. I'm not exaggerating in any way, but I'm surprised he didn't throw me down and shout "Me Tarzan, you Jane" and do it with me right then and there (TMI? Tell me if it is). He is a real womanizer, and it was hard for me to resist his charms. He's so damn… beautiful. I accidentally told him how symmetrical he was, which I forget sounds weird to other people, but I'm obsessed! I was half-expecting him to call me, but I was disappointed._

_As for me, Pegs, and Julian becoming the Golden Trio, sorry to disappoint. Julian blames me for distracting Wayne. He hasn't spoken to me since the interview, but Peggy heard him complaining about it to the interns. He had a complete fit, arm-waving and yelling and all, and he lodged a complaint with our current editor. One of the other sub-writers quit, so Peg is taking all the slack, which is why she hasn't checked her email. I'll tell her you inquired; it'll make her feel better._

_Peggy did mention that Harleen is transferring to Bruckner School of Medicine this January, so she'll be just outside the city limits. Since she wants to specialize in psychiatry, she wants to do an internship at Arkham, which I hope she doesn't. It's soooooooo creepy there! And the director, Dr. Crane, takes the cake for the term 'mad scientist'. Plus, she'll get mugged just going to work._

_Sometimes I'm a little freaked out that you knew so much about our personal lives. I doubt Jake and Tatiana will be in touch. Their final break-up was horrendous._

_I'm very happy you're getting your book. Yay._

_Aw, Jim's worried? That's adorable! Tell him I'm following his advice and that after the little one-on-one I had with Falcone, Mazzala can take his own damn photos. Honestly, the guy is a feature writer who only features yellow journalism, mob bosses with a hearts of gold, and rags on the justice system. He just wrote this excoriating editorial about dinner with A.D.A. Dent and his work with Internal Affairs; he might have called Jim for research. Ask Jim how he feels about Dent's investigations. I'm much more interested in his opinions, anyway._

… _In no way, shape, or form was I "involved" with Rudge. I just put him on a pedestal, and then I realized he wasn't a saint, and that's the end. Anyway, if anyone had a thing for him, it was Harley._

_I'm still available for babysitting, especially since Babs isn't old enough for a Facebook yet. I'm so proud of her for taking Jujitsu! Gawd, I love feeling like an older sister sometimes. Only Child Syndrome, y'know?_

_Best wishes and a bag of chips,  
Vicki_

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Vicki?" Jim Gordon shielded his eyes as four, bright camera flashes went off in quick succession. "Miss Vale, please back away…"

"Don't you want your picture next to him? This is Carmine Falcone," Vicki exclaimed, taking a moment to savor the thrill as she looked up at Falcone, chained to a spotlight, fine suit in tatters, about to fry, disoriented and going on about a bat. "This is huge! You nailed the biggest crime lord in Gotham!" Gordon gently placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to back away. Vicki blindly took one more shot and stumbled backwards, bumping into George Mazzala. He didn't seem to notice her; he was elbowing his way past a beat cop, trying to get close to Falcone, who was being carefully unwound from his perch.

Vicki had gotten a call around two in the morning from Mazzala, whose anonymous sources had tipped him off that something huge was going down by the docks. Hurling a string of profanities at him and ignoring the gut impulse that "late-night," "mob," and "freaky shit," did not make for the safest situation, Vicki rose from her bed. Under the cover of quiet darkness, she brushed her teeth, pulled on some jeans, and jumped into Mazzala's car fifteen minutes later.

"Wasn't there anyone else?" she whined, curling up against the window.

"DiBella don' like me anymore," Mazzala explained, puffing a cigarette as he whizzed through the barren streets of Gotham at 70 miles per hour. "Plus, you're hot stuff. Figured an ambitious gal' like yourself might want in on the action."

"What _action_?" Vicki had grumbled, rubbing her eyes raw as she tried to stay awake.

Now she knew. She was quite glad Mazzala had woken her up.

"Vicki, family friend or not, I am going to have to ask you to leave," Gordon sighed as somebody rolled a ring of "DO NOT ENTER" tape through the spot they'd been standing in. Vicki let her camera drop to dangle around her neck and pulled out a notepad.

"Just a few questions, please?"

"You're not the writer," Gordon pointed out, stifling a yawn and looking back warily to make sure nothing wayward was happening with his crime scene.

"Mazzala's more interested in painting a picture of an upstanding citizen wronged by police brutality-"

"_We_ didn't do this!"

"So who did?" Vicki insisted. Gordon shot her his "please-don't-badger-me, I-have-more-shit-to-worry-about" look, which she tried her best to disregard. Mazzala was going to spin this out of proportion and distract the _Times_ audience from the facts, but Vicki had full, high moral intentions of making sure that the citizens of Gotham knew the truth.

"Off the record," Gordon finally replied, waving away her notepad. Vicki opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head. "I don't know you too well, Vick, but I know your type, and you're too damn curious for your own good. Your profession is just a red herring."

He took her forearm and led her away from the ruckus. They stepped around the corner of a shipping crate, facing the polluted harbor. For a moment they stood silent, watching the street lamps highlighting the rank fumes and turning them into golden streaks that wafted through the night. Vicki bit her lip, holding her breath. Gordon flung an arm skyward and she followed his gaze to where the spotlight was pointed. She could just make out the outline of a white circle with a vertical blob in the middle, which she knew to be Falcone's body. The blob disappeared; Falcone was off.

Vicki glanced back around to observe the scene. The crowd grew as late-bird civilians were drawn to the scene; it magnified as the cops tried to shove Falcone in a car and he began to resist in his perplexed state. People started yelling; Vicki could hear Mazzala's rasp in the background.

"You see what that was?" Gordon asked. Vicki shook her head. "Falcone's men are going on about a monster that leapt out and dispatched them. They said it had animal ears, or at least, the guy's silhouette did. It's more than just guns—this guy's a damn acrobat. This guy's a serious nut, not your run-of-the-mill vigilante. He chained Falcone up there like his own personal mascot; like a bat."

"Just one guy? How do you know?"

Gordon didn't answer; he probably hadn't intended for that bit to slip. Vicki felt a sliver of electricity run through the veins in her hands, itching to snap a shot of Gordon as he contemplated what to say next. She realized that Detective Gordon made her feel somewhat like Bruce Wayne did. It was all in the contours of his face—the premature lines running parallel through his perpetually wrinkled forehead; the benevolent eyes, always troubled with some pressing concern. He was another unbelievably photogenic man, just not in the standard sense.

"Sergeant Gordon," Vicki interrupted his reverie. "Did it work? Any chance you'll finally be able to make a dent in the Mob's business?"

Gordon smiled; his lips were concealed by his dense brown mustache, and a twinkle of hope crept into his eyes. The effect was almost unnerving; Vicki had never seen the man smile.

"I'm not gonna jinx this with a yes or no," he said. They glanced back to the crowd; a fight had broken out. Probably a low-level enforcer trying to get to Falcone. Gordon turned back to her. "You got a way out of here?" Vicki nodded.

"That reminds me," Vicki admitted as Gordon readied to return to the fray. "How's Dent's investigation treating you?"

"Like a migraine," Gordon groaned, rubbing his temple with his thumb and forefinger. He shrugged his shoulders and recanted. "Guy's a crusader, but he's shaking things up, making cops think twice. He's thinning out my forces. Uh, that's also _off_ the record."

"Duly noted, Detective."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

By the time Vicki extricated Mazzala from the scene, it was reaching three-thirty in the morning. He spent most of the car ride to her apartment ranting and raving about how crime was starting to overtake the city, how the cops were so incompetent that freaks could terrorize the streets with no repercussions, and about how the incoming editor, Maggie Kyle, had a history of siding with the government on most issues, which was something an unbiased journalist 'just couldn't do!' Vicki was amazed at the man's ability to bullshit even himself. George Mazzala wrote most of his "Back Page" feature pieces with a pro-Mob tint, occasionally throwing legal bigwigs like Commissioner Loeb and former D.A. Carl Garcetti a bone. Vicki had thought he was being rewarded for it in some way, cash or whatnot, but now she was starting to think that he believed every word he spewed. Vicki tried to pretend she had fallen asleep so that his griping soon sputtered into dull whispers under his breath.

The adrenaline that had shot through her veins during the entire ordeal was draining out of her body and she vaguely contemplated asking the crack dealer on the third floor for a pick-me-up before work. By the time she trudged up to her apartment, 416, she was gripping the railing for dear life.

Littered in front of her door were dead roses. A few were tied into a measly bouquet set on her doormat, but perhaps a hundred more were scattered across the hallway. When she picked up the bundle, Vicki discovered a Joker had been tucked into the red cord that was holding the roses together. She plucked it out and tossed the bouquet into the doorway of 419. Hannah the Happy Hooker lived there, and when the six on Vicki's door unhinged, Hannah's clients got their rooms confused. No amount of duct tape could fix it, and her landlord couldn't find his glue gun, so Vicki had had to fend off more than a few unsuspecting johns.

_Great, you've got a stalker, Han, and a romantic one, at that…_ Vicki fished a pen out of her jacket pocket and scrawled 'I like daffodils' on the card before flinging it at Hannah's door. She could visualize the sad sleaze-ball in her mind, bursting into tears at the perceived rejection he would get and the mind-fuck Hannah would be put through for once.

Once she was inside her flat, Vicki heard creaking outside her hallway, but ignored it, figuring it to be the night guard in 423. She tip-toed out of her shoes, stripped out of her clothes and crept toward her room in total silence, as though she were sneaking into someone else's apartment.

Inside, stretched out on her bed, Julian was snoring in the midst of his sex-coma. On suggestion from Peggy, Vicki had tried to mend Julian's ill will towards her, and if truth be told, sex was the only thing she could give him as a peace offering. Not that she was advertising it beyond anyone but Peg, who could sympathize somewhat.

"You realize that this officially makes you a slut," Peggy informed her the next day over lunch. The two young women were huddled on an old desk in a janitorial closet, eating sandwiches from the vendor three floors below _The_ _Gotham Times_ offices. Vicki took a thoughtful chew out of her egg salad and tried to correct her.

"I _comforted_ a beleaguered colleague-"

"You _fucked_ him so he wouldn't be mad at you anymore," Peg guffawed, snorting her blueberry yogurt all over, a couple of flecks flying into her pin-straight brunette locks. "And someone's gonna catch on. Soon every guy you borrow a pen from will demand a blow job when you don't return it." Vicki rolled her eyes, taking a swig of her green tea.

"You're being a real cunt about this, Peg."

"Slut."

"Skank."

"Ho."

"Bitch."

"Fucktard."

"Not a word!" Peg jammed one of her heels into Vicki's foot, making the blonde recoil.

"Bottom line is that I need Julian on my side. Arrogant, yes, but he's also intelligent and ambitious," Vicki said. She adjusted her position, snagging her office pants on a nail jutting out from the desktop. She cursed under her breath and stopped wriggling. "I'm going to need a few friends if I want to survive here, and I plan on being here a while; at least until I get a job offer from _The View_ or something."

"Broadcast, how fitting," Peg mused. "I agree though. Word on the street is—and by the street, I mean the coffee room—is that DiBella considers you his prodigy," at which point, Vicki burst into a fit of laughter, "but Vaughan is intimidated. And Mazzala _definitely_ doesn't like you after that whole ordeal with the Falcone incident," Peg added, referring to the vigilante article Vicki had collaborated with Mazzala on. Vicki had insisted on toning down some of his more libelous sentences, and consulted their editor, Martha Barnes, when he didn't acquiesce.

Just thinking about it gave Vicki a headache, and she fell back into a circular argument with her inner conscience about how she wasn't making any friends in her new environment, the exception being Constance Mooreston, of "The Awful Truth" column, but Constance was always so capricious with who she liked. It didn't help that whenever she thought about the vigilante, now dubbed Batman, she felt a sting of dejection that she wouldn't get the first photograph of Gotham's newest hero. It was an honor that the top two photographers were vying for, and there was an unspoken agreement among the staff that Vicki was not in the running.

"I heard you're covering Bruce Wayne's birthday party for Constance," Peggy commented after a pregnant lull in the conversation.

"Goody gumdrops," Vicki groused. "I _want_ to be chasing the Batman story, but Julian's determined to finish his article on Arkham, so I can't get him to help me, and Gellar's on Batman, and Gellar always gets that hack photog Rosique to do her pics."

"Look at the bright side: even if you can't get an exclusive with Batman, you can just blow Bruce Wayne and he'll _buy_ you Batman."

"… Thanks for the support, Peg."

"No problem-o. Ya gonna eat your chips?"


	3. The Alleged Hero Of Gotham

A/N: Those were the best reviews ever. Just thought I'd mention. Apologies for the long wait; I'm starting college soon.

I've noticed that all my chapters seem a tad formulaic, the best example being that Vicki always has a heart to heart with Gordon, and ends up in the Narrows at some point, so the next chapter will change that up a bit. It will take place at Wayne's birthday party. But in the mean time...

Warnings: In this chapter, Vicki abuses children and the Joker writes poetry.

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**CHAPTER THREE: The Alleged Hero of Gotham**

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Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.

Stephen Leacock

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"_Nothing hemmed above mid-thigh, tacky, feathery, patterned, ruffled, tasseled, or pastel!" –Constance B. Mooreston_

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* * *

"And then what happened?"

"I dunno, he, like, disappeared inta thin air, like he flew, or somethin'!"

Iphegenia "Gen" Gellar tried to keep her cool as she stood before the vendor, with his—double-chin, and scraggly beard and thick 'city' accent—and she got the sneaking suspension that he did not have the capacity to communicate beyond the bewildered description of Batman she'd already gotten from other 'eye-witnesses'. It was the third time that morning that her question had incited such a response, but what could she expect? The Narrows wasn't legendary for housing the most intelligent of Gotham's population; not even the most devious. The average IQ of citizens in the Narrows was just shy of Forrest Gump's or a Playboy Bunny's.

Although Gen had heard drastically differing accounts of the previous night's events, her gut instinct was always right on where the story lay. Batman had been here last night. He'd been spotted, stumbling through an alley, on fire. A tenement had gone up in flames somewhere in the vicinity that same night, and Batman had lurched around a corner, sight unseen. His trail disappeared after that, with _everyone_ musing that he'd flown out; but people couldn't just fly into the air. They just couldn't. They could buy or steal tools that would aid them in gliding through the air, yes. And Gen was after such evidence, which would provide the citizens of Gotham the most ease: That the Batman was human.

Gen brushed off the hotdog vendor and kept on hunting, trying to weed out which pedestrians were actual witnesses to the event, and which just wanted to bullshit her. She paid no heed to the upstart photog she'd brought with her. Her usual photographer, Rosique, had chosen to get rundown by a cab today and so was indisposed. Vicki Vale had taken his place.

Vicki was picking around the stretch of road where Batman had been sighted in most of the accounts. In one hand was her camera; in her other was a cell phone, one finger poised to dial 911, now the first number on her speed dial. She couldn't believe she was hanging around the slums of the Narrows _again_; this had to stop. Although she'd taken a few self-defense classes in keeping with Detective Gordon's advice, and sure she had the balls to keep her cool when most people would just quake in their boots, Vicki knew that pressing her luck could only end up with her getting mugged, raped—hopefully post-mortem—and face-down in a ditch somewhere.

Her only consolation was Rosique's car accident. That left Vaughan's workload as the _Times'_ top photographer a bit overwhelming, having to run after several different leads and all, so Vicki had been assigned to work with Gellar for the time being. Vicki was deluding herself by thinking that being able to snap a shot of the hero vigilante was her ticket to a raise and a possible upgrade in her living style.

The air was thick with smoky black plumes issuing from the decimated tenement down the block. Half-burnt—but salvaged—furniture crowded the block, causing breaks in the outpour of people. There were enraged blue-collar men hulking around in their boxers, wives cowering in willowy nighties smudged with soot, stick-thin junkies wandering through the crowds in a daze, little children wailing with all the force of their tiny voice boxes, and casual looters sauntering by to take whatever struck their fancy. Vicki ducked in and out of the destitution, taking photos whenever she felt confident that she would not be noticed. Gellar eventually got a lead and directed Vicki down a block.

Vicki kicked over a cardboard box, revealing five hub caps and a pile of tire rubber. At least no one was living in it. _At this rate, I'll be living in the same shitty flat for a good… rest of my life. Maybe I'll just move back in with my parents. No hookers there…_

Autumn was in full swing; the wind-chill was picking up, snapping at Vicki's exposed skin and numbing it. She'd re-enter the office later with a Rudolph nose. At least the tenement was warm from the minute fires still burning beneath the rubble. She glanced up to the sky, clouded over with a pale shade of gray, and received a stiff, black sweater vest, flying full-force, in her face.

She took a minute to untangle herself and browsed her surroundings for the source; it was a laundry line strung between two fire escapes, whipping frailly in the wind. An idea shot through Vicki's brain.

The fire escape was slick from the previous night's downpour, so Vicki crept up the steps with the utmost attention to how she planted her limbs as she scaled the tenement. It was nine stories high; once she got to the top, without so much as rolling her eyes downward, Vicki clambered for a ladder that led her up onto the roof.

She surveyed the scene; it was barren. Yet another dead end, only Vick was all the more bitter because she'd risked splattering herself all over the pavement below for it. If the Batman had gone _up_, he'd have been on _this_ roof, but the rain had washed away any evidence of him if he'd been present. Across the alley was another roof one story higher than her building, but it was slanted and would've been impossible to scale. At least for her…

Vicki loitered around the roof a couple of minutes before she descended on the other side of the building, where she'd found a _much_ more stable-looking ladder and stair system.

When she hopped down to the pavement, a young boy with dreadlocks whizzed past her toward a group of boys congregated by a trash fire, launching whatever garbage they could find into the flames. Another boy whizzed past, this one diminutive with straw-colored hair, hollering after the first kids.

"Chase got a spy thing!" The dreadlocks boy pulled something black and shaped like a nerf gun out of his jacket. He held it out to the boys gathered around the trash and tossed it around the circle, examining it. The blonde, Chase, Vicki presumed, jumped in the middle, snatching at the device. The other boys held it away, just above his fingertips.

"_Give it back! Batman gave it to_ me!" Chase shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hey!" Vicki approached the boys, nudging away a freckled boy on the edge of the group so that she could see everything. The object, the 'spy thing', had been returned to the boy with the dreadlocks. "What's going on here?"

"None of yer business, bitch," seethed a thin-faced boy to Dreadlocks' right. The other boys nodded in agreement, casting an army of territorial glares at Vicki.

_Ah, the young misogynists of tomorrow_. Chase went back to clawing at the object, holding back tears as he jumped for it. Vicki grabbed his shoulder and drew him back from the others.

"Yeah, Chase, Batman ain't gonna give somethin' cool to a mama's boy," the dreadlocked boy taunted, waving the black object in the air as Chase ceased his resistance, letting Vicki push him out of the circle. Betraying no hint of calculation, Vicki snatched the object out of Dreadlocks' hands before he could blink. She tried to jump out of the way before any of the boys could retaliate, but she'd already caused an uproar. The thin-faced boy darted forward and punched her in the gut; Vicki grunted, but kicked him in the shin and shoved him back into the circle, where he smacked onto the concrete.

"Lay another hand on me, you little dickweed, and my uncle Maroni'll burn down your house all over again," Vicki bellowed, holding the object behind her back and waving a finger threateningly at the boys. For one second, she was afraid they wouldn't believe her lie, and she'd have to contend with a miniature mob of street boys who couldn't spell chivalry, let alone define it.

Her fear was for naught. The name of Salvatore Maroni, cousin of Carmine Falcone, third most-feared mobster in Gotham, registered in their scrawny, livid faces; they scattered away down the alley. Only Chase remained, trembling before her, still determined to retrieve his property.

Once the last of the gang had rounded the corner, Vicki took stock of the 'spy thing'. It was crafted out of fine, polished black metal, all but pristine, with minimal water or fire damage. After twisting at it like a Rubik's Cube for a minute, Vicki managed to yank it into a staff shape; at the base was a transparent, green screen. She held it up to her eye; it was some sort of X-ray device.

"Did you say Batman gave this to you?" Vicki asked, spinning around bit by bit as the surrounding buildings opened themselves to her. Chase nodded, his eyes growing wider as she stepped toward him. "He just… let you have it?" Vicki dropped the X-ray device and stared at him.

"Yeah…" Chase began. His inner chatterbox gained a little bravery. "He was hanging on my wall, looking inside the upstairs window. I told him that the kids at school didn't believe me, so he gave me that."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No," Chase replied, shaking his head rapidly back and forth.

The Batman's résumé was growing stranger and stranger with every turn the story took. He dressed like a bat. He jumped out of dark corners and snatched criminals into the rafters. He took down the most terrifying mobster in Gotham. He inspired the bureaucracy of Gotham's legal system, which moved like sludge, to get to work. He gave expensive spy gear to little children. He spied on the shittiest tenement in the city. He might've triggered the fire that burnt down the same tenement. He could friggin' _fly_.

Vicki twisted the X-ray device into its original form and handed it back to Chase, who took it cautiously from her hand. He, too, had believed her lie that she could influence the whims of Salvatore Maroni, and tried to make sure he didn't so much as touch her. Another gust of wind billowed through the alley; Vicki noticed that Chase was still shivering, more from cold than fear.

"Where'd you sleep last night?" Vicki inquired, softening her voice as best she could.

"Over there." Chase pointed to a stoop twenty feet away, where a tiny fort of cardboard boxes had been dismantled by the wind. The conversation reached an uncomfortable plateau. Vicki would have liked nothing more than to kidnap this child, drop him off at a homeless shelter, and feel confident that he'd be adopted by June Cleaver, or at the very least, Shirley Partridge, but that wasn't going to happen, and Vicki couldn't devote any time to a street child when her own life was as shambled as it was right now.

"Mind if I take a picture, kid?" she asked, holding up her camera. An enormous grin spread over Chase's face and he held the X-ray device up to his eye, posing as if he were James Bond. Without knowing if she'd give Gellar this tip or not, if she'd submit the photo to Barnes, or if she really wanted to get this little boy involved in a city-wide mystery, Vicki snapped the shot.

She removed the denim jacket she had on and held it out to Chase. It wasn't very warm, but it was large enough to house Chase comfortably for a few years, and it wasn't noticeably feminine. If possible, his eyes widened even more, his grin sliding off his face, but he still took the jacket.

"Why are you-"

"Karma," Vicki said, rubbing her arms as goose bumps spring up all over. She startled, embarrassed, and folded her arms over her chest as she felt her nipples hardening from the intense chill. "I just beat up a twelve-year-old. I have to get back universal good will somehow."

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* * *

_It's been a hard day's night/And I been workin' like a dog/It's been a hard day's night/I should be sleepin' like a-_

"Vale."

"Vicki? It's Constance. I need to know what you're wearing."

"Blue jeans, yellow tee, knit cap-"

"No, to Bruce Wayne's birthday party, the biggest social event of the next three months."

"Blue jeans, yellow tee, cowboy hat…"

"Seriously!"

"I don't know. I'm only gonna be there for the food."

"Go for nice, attractive; not cheap or tacky. It doesn't need to be designer or anything, off the rack is fine if pressed, but this isn't junior prom. We need to blend, so go for subtle, too."

"Nothing really disguises my camera."

"We should complement each other. I'll be wearing floor-length forest green, so you should get something dark blue or even something light, like yellow…"

"We'll be a daisy?"

"I mean all of this. Don't be flippant about my advice; the 'kept' women of Gotham can be harsh critics. I need to stay in their good graces."

"You rag on them every week in your column."

"Not the point. Anyway, if Wayne's behavior is any indication, I'll have a brand new focus for my column this year."

"… Huh?"

"You weren't exaggerating; he is _quite_ the playboy. He showed up the other day at a dinner for Mr. Earle at the Archibald Hotel with a couple of trashy European supermodels who jumped in the fountains. When the maître'd told him to leave, he just bought the hotel and dove in himself. Ah, can you imagine?"

"Vividly."

"And then for the past two days, he's been MIA. Just gone; he missed Mildred Peerston's charity gala, even though she held it in his parents' honor. I tried to get a hold of him for a comment or some background information, but his butler keeps stonewalling me with excuses about a spelunking vacation."

"That's nice."

"Are you even listening?"

"Gotta go. Good-bye, Constance…"

"_Nothing hemmed above mid-thigh, tacky, feathery, patterned, ruffled, tasseled, or pastel!_"

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* * *

"Detective?" Vicki glanced at her watch. Only 11:13. Barbara had promised to be back at midnight, with no mention as to whether Jim would be coming home or not. He was supposed to be working 24/7 on the Falcone case.

"Vicki, I think we're a little past formalities," Gordon said, tossing his coat by the closet door. "You guard my children, I keep you out of trouble; call me Jim."

Barbara was out tonight. A friend of hers who worked as an administrative assistant at Gotham University was getting married and was holding her "Marti-Margi-Pedi" bachelorette party tonight.

After poking around several more Batman-sighting spots, Gellar'd still had nowhere near as many facts as she needed for a feature story, even after two days of interviewing the tenement inhabitants. Later, Vicki again defrosted herself again in the janitorial closet where she ate lunch and finished up her work. That evening, she hopped in a cab, and, just as she had arrived on Jim and Barbara's stoop, she'd had to field a call from Constance, who was sputtering some nonsense about the Wayne birthday assignment.

Vicki had scraped up just enough money to afford her electricity payment for the month, and now she'd have to use up some of the rest for a dress. _Good-bye, microwave burritos…_ She was so desperate for money that she was still babysitting the Gordon children whenever she could.

The Wayne party was her double-edged sword. On one hand, Vicki hadn't done the math, but she was pretty sure it was already costing her more to attend the party than she was going to be paid for doing so. She hated receiving such a frivolous assignment, one that could have been taken care of by an intern and a disposable camera. On the other hand, though Vicki was loathe to admit it, she needed to be friends with Constance; and there _would_ be certain perks to the evening…

Every time she thought about seeing Bruce Wayne again, her skin warmed as if it were glowing and she had to flex her fingertips just to keep from pitching a fit of excitement. She couldn't help but hope that maybe he'd take a second from his Eurotrash supermodels to flirt with a comparatively frumpy _Times_ photog.

So here she was, sprawled on Barbara's couch after an evening of babysitting, pretending to skim an issue of _The Daily Gotham_, thinking about Bruce Wayne.

_Gawd, I'm pathetic…_

"Falcone is out," Jim muttered, his voice almost too quiet for Vicki to hear.

"_WHAT?_" Vicki exclaimed in a high pitched voice, springing up from the couch. Jim popped the cap off of a bottle of a beer and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, gulping it down as if it were a canteen of water in the Sahara.

"That hack doctor from Arkham had him transferred to the secure wing and put on suicide watch," he continued bitterly. Vicki flung aside the campus newspaper and took a seat next to him. "They're prepping him for an insanity defense. Can't punish someone who's being '_treated_.'"

"There's no cure for being a greedy, rotten bastard," Vicki responded, trying to sooth her voice, which had become several pitches and decibels too high.

"Argue that in court," Jim said. "I got the news just before I clocked out for the night. I should've stayed and done… _something_…" He took another depressed swig, praying for Barbara to come home soon and assure him that there wasn't anything he could have done.

"But… he doesn't even have a history of mental illness," Vicki said, searching her memory for articles on Falcone, for any hint she might have sensed on the day she met him. "Does he?"

"We can have a court-approved psychologist examine him, but…" He trailed off again and turned to Vicki, hunched over the table like he was discussing this matter with a partner or a colleague down at the station. Vicki took a fraction of a second to be flattered by his lack of restraint. "You're the psych major. How likely is that, insanity out of the blue? Is it possible that being caught triggered something in him?"

"Extreme mental duress can make a lot of things possible," she replied. "Falcone was exhibiting some disorientation at the scene, but no behavior that would indicate sudden psychopathology or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder…" Vicki stopped cold when she realized what Jim was alluding to. He knew a lot more about extreme mental duress, about criminals and about normal proceedings than she did. That wasn't his question. "You think the Batman did this?"

Jim took another swig of his beer in affirmative reply.

"Falcone seemed fine at the scene," Vicki insisted, "He must be faking, or something happened in booking, or-"

"Whose side are you on," Jim retorted, causing Vicki to snap up in her seat. A moment of pregnant silence ensued, wherein the only sound was Jim draining the last of his beer. "I didn't mean to get defensive," he continued softly, "but _I_ booked him. Nothing happened; he was disoriented, like you saw, then angry. Nothing insane."

"Any developments on Batman," Vicki asked, ignoring the momentary awkwardness. "Stuff you've kept from the press?"

"Official orders are to arrest the vigilante known as Batman on sight. I assume you heard about the task force assembled to catch him?" Vicki nodded; Julian had lobbied for the assignment and chattered her ear off when he didn't get it. "Vicki…" Jim leaned forward and gazed at Vicki eye-to-eye, his stare boring holes into her skull. Her eyes flickered downwards, unable to stand the taut tension as he made his intentions clear. "If we continue this conversation, you have to _swear to me_ you'll use discretion."

"… Quid pro quo."

"Excuse me?"

Vicki decided that if Detective Gordon could be this forthcoming with her about such sensitive subject matter, then it was only right that she extend him the same courtesy. She grabbed her purse off the couch and rifled through it, pulling out her camera. She flipped through a few images until she found the right one. It was the picture she'd taken of Chase posing with his present from Batman. She tried to speak; the air caught in her throat as she watched Jim's eyebrows knit together as he studied the picture, reminding her of her own father.

"Three nights ago, Batman was spotted near the Narrows tenement that burnt down," Vicki breathed, hushing her voice to a near whisper, as though someone was listening over her shoulder. "This kid said Batman was hanging off the wall and _gave_ him this expensive piece of espionage equipment."

"What is it?" asked Jim, his eyes flickering between Vicki and the scrawny child in the picture, an echo of his own sweet son.

"Some kind of X-ray device," Vicki told him, "I wasn't sure."

"Do you _have_ it," Jim inquired, letting the camera slip from his hands in unrest. Vicki took the camera from him; she pressed the 'off' button, fidgeting with her hands. Now that she was in a position to help the authorities, she was condemning her decision to spare Chase's new toy from the spotlight. Without taking her eyes off the table, Vicki shook her head, several locks of her golden hair falling into her eyes. "It's not even going to print, is it," Jim stated. Vicki couldn't tell if he was disappointed or angry or relieved.

She chipped at the polish on her thumbnail. When he didn't say anything, she resolved that it was safe to speak again.

"What _was_ the Batman was looking for, anyway? Everybody knows where Falcone's distributors are-"

"_You_ do?" Jim asked incredulously.

"Mazzala and Gellar both have street sources that say Falcone's main distributors are located in the south neighborhoods of Endsbury and they deal from there."

"Jesus…" Jim rubbed his eyes, cringing at the thought of his children's long-time babysitter interviewing dealers and having 'sources.' "The answer to your question is that he was looking for the second half of Falcone's drug shipment."

"Huh?"

"Falcone split the shipment," Jim explained, tossing his beer bottle into the trash. It crashed in and clattered around as he got up to grab another from the fridge. "His henchmen confirm that the half we have in custody was headed to Endsbury, but no one knows where the other half is. Falcone didn't talk, and he certainly won't talk now." He sat down and set the beer in front of himself, fiddling with the cap. "The Batman found it."

"He must be with law enforcement," Vicki mused. "Anyone else with that kind of information would have too much to lose from messing with the Mob."

"He's not just messing with the Mob," Jim corrected her; "he's taking them on. He's a crusader, pure vigilante."

"Did he write you a letter or is this just your gut instinct?"

Jim didn't say anything. Vicki bit her lip, wondering if her comment was too catty. It wasn't meant like that, but Vicki hated not knowing things. She just hated it. Couldn't stand it. Being reminded every single day that she had a front-row seat to perhaps the greatest mystery of Gotham's entire history unfolding made her a little bitter. She'd been musing on it for _so long_; whether he was criminal, what was his motive, how he flew, and why a _bat_, of all mascots?

"He's not with law enforcement," Jim commented after a moment. "But you're on the right track; he's got a source in Gotham PD."

_Who?_ was the first thought that came to Vicki's mind, until she considered that Jim probably didn't know. It was just plausible conjecture; but he sounded so certain…

"I… told Batman where Falcone was… on the night he was busted…" Jim admitted, his words trickling out uneasily.

Vicki's mouth dropped open in awe. Jim let go of the beer he'd been fidgeting with and went to stand by the window, leaning on the sill. He was fighting back a bit of inner turmoil; telling a _journalist_ that you were assisting _Gotham's most-wanted vigilante_ was like loading yourself into the guillotine and offering to release the blade. Vicki, for her part, didn't say anything. She was overcome with complete and utter speechlessness, trying to wrap her head around Jim's secret.

"You've _seen_ him up close," she gasped at length, once she had enough mental clarity to string together a sentence. "_Spoken to him?_"

"He popped up the other night, on that railing," Jim said, pointing out the window toward the wooden steps that snaked around his building. Vicki jumped up to follow his gaze. "He's the one who noticed the split shipment. I told him who was in Falcone's pocket, and it's been radio-silence ever since. MIA for two days now."

It was all Vicki could do not to spring outside the door and investigate every inch of the landing where Batman had perched. She knew she wouldn't find anything; two days left a scene pretty cold, especially for a meticulous vigilante.

"Holy fucking shit," Vicki whispered in a half-squeal. Jim rolled his eyes and sat down again, debating the second beer in front of him.

"His down-time is giving the Mob a chance to round up Falcone's other businesses," he ruminated. "Money laundering, prostitution, et cetera. Now we'll be distracted by trying to keep Falcone where we can prosecute him. Even if we do manage to convict him, the Mob will have recouped by then."

Vicki glanced at her watch. 11: 25. Jim needed Barbara home now; Vicki had no idea what to say to comfort the ultra-pessimistic detective. She could only think of more depressing and random facts swirling around the current events of Gotham.

D.A. Carl Finch had missed his dinner with Mazzala and word was that the Missing Persons unit was kicking into gear to find him. Bruce Wayne had withdrawn from the public eye for a spelunking vacation. A known Mob brothel had shut down and relocated in the midst of Falcone's arrest. A robbery at St. Swithun's Catholic Church had gone awry; two clown-masked thieves had been shot down by the guy who got away with the donations.

The shit was hitting the fan.

"I… I think this Bat guy has a plan," Vicki began, sitting back down at the table. "And if he sought help from the cleanest cop in the Gotham police force, he deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"You flatter me," Jim insisted, unwilling to let Vicki's praise go to his head. He leaned forward on his elbows, his face in his hands. The table creaked beneath him. "How were the kids tonight?" he asked, his voice muffled through his fingers. The none-too-subtle subject change was not lost on Vicki.

"Jimmy threw a car at my head." It was Jim's turn to look stunned and speechless. "He was aiming for his train tracks," Vicki giggled, the blustered and bewildered look on Jim's face priceless. He had fish eyes. "It was totally my fault."

"I was gonna say," Jim said, rubbing his temples, "Babs is usually more violent."

"It's cause you call her _Babs_. She has to compensate somehow."

**

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**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"YOU WHORE!"

This was a statement that Hannah the Happy Hooker was used to hearing; and yet, hearing it from the vicious blonde three doors down at seven o'clock in the morning down just seemed to inflame her enough to make a jump for the blonde's head. The blonde ducked out of her reach, bumping into the green-suited delivery guy behind her.

"Sir, these _flowers_ are for _her_," Vicki seethed, flinging a finger at the annoyed prostitute, who was struggling to regain her balance after she tripped over the chunky neon-blue stilettos strapped to her feet. "She is the _streetwalker_ who fucked the president of Gotham's Lunatic Stalker Society, and therefore she is the one who should be getting these flowers!"

"Ma'am, I tol' ya before," the delivery man sighed, shifting around the cargo in his wobbling arms, "the order says '97 Orchard Street, Apartment 416, Reatton'. Is that not your apartment?"

"I _told_ you," Hannah interrupted, giving Vicki time to reconsider various ways the delivery man could be wrong. "You know this happened last week, too," she told the delivery guy, "I get up to read the paper and girl's pushed all these dead roses all over my front door like some creeper." She leaned provocatively against the doorway next to Vicki, running her acrylic nails through her fat, bronze curls. The delivery guy shot her a nervous smile, but began to buckle under the weight of his shipment.

"Ma'am, I really need to put the rest of these in there," he insisted, "they're the last ones."

"That's all you got," Hannah scoffed, "Girl, what're you complainin' about?" Vicki jerked her head towards the interior of her apartment and her shoulders sank as she took in the unrecognizable clutter. Hannah gasped when she glimpsed the true horror.

Vicki's apartment was completely bedecked with bright-yellow daffodils. Bouquets spilled over her ratty old couch, vases crowded her bookcase and coffee table, baskets were bunched all over her floor, wreaths hung from every hook and doorknob, and a foot-tall pile of corsages and boutonnieres had been arranged on her kitchen counter. Enormous golden petals concealed any recognizable hint of her living space. Only a five-foot portion of the doorway was still accessible, and that was ruined when the delivery guy knocked Vicki aside to set the final two baskets down.

"Do I have to sign anything?" Vicki groaned, bumping her head on the doorway purposefully, trying to knock the sleepiness out of her eyes. She'd awoken to harsh knocks on her door, answering without first covering her immodest pajama ensemble. A barrage of the damned yellow flowers had greeted her.

"Actually, I got one more thing for you, ma'am-"

"_You said that was the last of it!_"

"It's small, promise," he assured her, backing away with a measure of real fear in his eyes. He skittered down the stairs before Vicki could complain again, bumping into Vicki's landlord as he went.

"Papa, I need help…" Vicki begged, gesturing to her apartment. Corey "Papa" Papakonstatinou, the landlord, limped toward her with a bewildered expression on his face. His leg had been injured in an accident when he was younger, but his family had been unable to pay for the surgery, so he was forced to drag his leg whenever he walked.

"Look like somebody got a crush on you," Papa said, sticking his head into her apartment to sniff at the fragrant blooms. He chortled a little. "Eros is changing his game a little, I see."

"Papa, Blondie here is convinced the delivery guy got his order mixed up," Hannah provided, "and she keeps blamin' it on me."

"Because lots of creepy guys fixate on hookers," Vicki insisted shrilly, "Gary Ridgeway, Vincent Johnson, Aaron Serkis, _Jack the Ripper!_" Vicki failed to mention that all those men were serial killers who murdered prostitutes. And none of them had given their victims flowers.

"The 'Sunday Morning Slasher'?" Papa gasped, flabbergasted at Vicki's shameful willingness to invoke the name of Gotham's most prolific serial killer, Aaron Serkis. "Vick, what's wrong with flowers?" he questioned gently, shrugging his shoulders. It seemed like a small thing to get Vick so riled up. Papa peeked back into the apartment; all right, not _small_, but indeed harmless. He stepped in between Hannah and Vicki to create a barrier, and was about to pat Vicki on the back when she stepped away.

"It's creepy when I don't know who it is," she said, leaning against the stair railing. "None of this makes any sense…"

"Maybe its Bruce Wayne," Hannah interjected sardonically, not knowing that this was the first possibility Vicki had considered. Nobody else in Gotham had this kind of money, Mob bosses aside; but Bruce, flirt that he was, would have given her a card or something to remember him by. He was an obvious egomaniac and would want his gift acknowledged. Besides, he had all the supermodels he could want. Why court _Vicki_?

Although Vicki very much _wanted_ it to be Wayne, she had resigned herself to consider other possible candidates. She could think of only one, yet Dr. Crane didn't seem like the kind of guy to send flowers, dead or alive, playing cards or none.

She startled when the delivery guy reappeared at her arm with a long white box in his hands. It was tied with a gleaming purple ribbon and dented at the corners.

"Last item, ma'am," he explained, offering it to Vicki, who bitterly snatched it away from him. "Y'know, my boss said nobody's ever bought out our entire inventory before. Thought that'd please a girl."

"Do you have a receipt?" Vicki queried hopefully.

"Boss said the guy paid in cash," the delivery guy said, backing away. Being a flower delivery guy, he'd had to bear the brunt of a lot of irate lovers, so he could calculate arm range very fast; but Vicki made no move to channel her anger at him. She was more interested in her gift.

"Didn't that seem suspicious?" she grumbled under her breath, picking at the ribbon. It was a dumb question; half of Gotham used cash payments in their daily life, even for such large transactions. She pushed away the ribbon and tore open the box to find a lonely Joker card. Twirling the card in her fingers, Vicki glimpsed a flash of untidy scrawl on the back side.

"What's it say?" Papa asked. The delivery guy, the landlord, and the hooker all crowded around Vicki, their curiosity piqued. She cleared her throat and read the cryptic scrawl aloud.

_Roses are red  
Violets are blue  
Sugar is sweet  
And so are you_

_But the roses have wilted  
The violets are dead  
The sugar is lumpy  
And so is your head_

_-J_


	4. Three May Keep A Secret

A/N: Legions? Aw, you're cute... Thank you for the fantastic reviews. I'm a big fan of the exclamation points.

Let it be noted that I hate this chapter. I'm not sure whether I'm off form because college is challenging or because this chapter feels more like a device than part of the story. It feels like a cliché. If anyone has any tips or advice on how it might be bettered, I'm open.

Points go to anyone who can spot my very subtle nod to the comics, which I haven't read, but respect. I also filched a line from Showtime's _Secret Diary of a Callgirl_.

Warnings: Once again, Vicki has a really dirty mouth. And snoops.

**

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**CHAPTER FOUR: Three May Keep A Secret**

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"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

Benjamin Franklin

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_"Gotham is the angry middle child of a one night stand between Detroit and New York." – Barbara Gordon_

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* * *

To: "Vicki Vale"  
From: "Charlotte Hanford Vale"  
Subject: Your father

_I can't seem to get a hold of you on phone, and your office must have a pretty bad message system because I've left you three requests for a callback and gotten nothing. I know you're busy, but I have a rather urgent update on your father's condition. Remember that guy who raised you, tall, brown hair, hazel eyes, your father? He got pneumonia a week ago and, of course, that weakened his immune system, which with his cancer meds, made him even worse. Now the doctors want to send him to this treatment facility in Illinois. I haven't decided what to do yet, but this is a family matter. You need to be here for the decision. I'm not sure I can handle the stress of taking care of him and working full time at the firm. He won't say what he wants; he just gets crankier every day. I am sure having you here will calm him down. Please answer soon._

_I love you so much, please reply soon._

_Mom_

_P.S.: Do you have my potato peeler? I can't find it anywhere…_

"Get your own fucking chips!"

"But I'm flat broke…"

"Lemme see it."

"You'll get it all greasy!"

Vicki hugged the 'JC Penny' bag to her chest as Peggy glared at her, wiping her fingers on a napkin. Lunchtime was almost over, and Vicki had just returned from a torturous hour of shopping with Constance for something to wear to the Wayne birthday party. Even on a "SUPER-EXTRA CLEARANCE SALE," the simple blue velvet number had cost Vicki 75 dollars and the hope that she would ever be able to support herself. She tugged the damned dress out of the protective sleeve and stood up, draping it over her body. Peggy, cocking her head to one side, scrutinized the dress with a critical seamstress's eye.

"It's okay," she stated, frowning as her eyes examined the cut of the dress. It had a halter cut top and a plunging V-neck that slid down into a pencil skirt, ending just above Vicki's ankle. She would have to wear flats, to say the least. At the hem, Peggy could see a few strands of thread straying away and curling up, beginning to unravel the weave of the fabric.

"Just _okay_?" Vicki exclaimed, pouting and curling over to see it herself. "Gee, thanks for the support…"

"I mean that you've got some serious boobage and child-bearing hips," Peggy clarified, laughing as she reached forward to thwack Vicki's breast playfully, making the downtrodden blonde sit back in her seat and shove the dress back in the bag. "The cut of that dress would be better suited for a girl with a skinner, less-womanly bod… Hey, can I have it when you're done?"

Vicki glared at her friend with all the heat of 387 suns. Peggy was 5'10'', three inches taller than Vicki, and although she was an avid eater—she was currently on her second bag of Doritos—Peggy never gained an ounce; she had the protruding collarbone and sharp iliac crests to prove it. Boob size was the one thing that Vicki could claim the advantage in, but, thanks to Peggy's background in clothing design—she'd been making her own clothes since she was 11—she always knew what made her look good.

"Sometimes I hate you a little," Vicki moaned, snatching a few chips off the counter off and scarfing them down.

"What, for the skinny thing?" Peggy laughed, "Miss, 'I-just-dropped-10-pounds'?"

"It's not that I have the discipline to not eat," Vicki insisted through a mouthful of chips. She swallowed them and sucked the leftover salt off her fingertips. "I just don't have the money."

"If you're so broke," Peggy asked, pulling the dress back out of its bag and running her fingers over the imperfect seams, snagging a nail at the hem, "why not apply for food stamps, or something like that?"

"Crack babies in the Narrows need them," answered Vicki. She got up and began to rummage through the refrigerator for some unmarked food to heist.

"Aw, Vicki Vale, humanitarian," Peggy cooed. "Hunger-striking for crack babies." She put the dress away as Vicki sat down with some frozen Sun Chips. "Y'know, I can run to the fabric store at three and fix this up a little better."

"Peg, you are Jesus-"

"_Holy shit!_"

Both women turned to see Julian tripping over a vase of daffodils just next to the break room door and crashing spectacularly to the ground. The two interns who followed him everywhere, Scott and Joanne, didn't offer any help. They were too busy staring at the bright yellow mass that took up half the break room.

Vicki had known she couldn't keep all those flowers in her apartment. Her pleading with the delivery guy had done nothing until she managed to get Hannah the Happy Hooker to go on a date with him; in return, Vicki had to provide her with an alibi and testify as a character witness should Hannah ever get caught plying her wares. Vicki then had to help him load up his truck with at least half of the flowers and transport them to the _Times_ headquarters.

Originally, Vicki had intended to give them away, but Peggy came up with the idea of making money off of them; they'd set out a basket and made a sign that said "1 dollar per flower." They had about 15 dollars so far, but a few people were too cheap and just took off with the flowers without leaving any money. The mountain of corsages and boutonnieres had been reduced to a scattered pile.

Vicki was glad to see them go. She was still debating whether or not to confess everything to Peggy: the cryptic poem, her suspicion that it was Dr. Crane… Her life felt like a Gothic novel gone stark-raving mad.

Julian scrambled to his feet, sputtering obscenities.

"What the fuck is with all these flowers?" Julian hollered, kicking away the guilty vase and wiping at the water that had soaked through his pants.

"Vicki's got a secret admirer," Peggy giggled. Vicki slid low into her seat, embarrassment flaming in her cheeks and cold dread seeping into her chest. Once you got out of high school, secret admirers were not as romantic or anticipated; they were just creepy. She stuffed a handful of Sun Chips into her mouth without affirming Peggy's statement.

"I'll see you at three," she mumbled to Peggy, slinking out of her seat and tossing the stone-hard Sun Chips in the garbage. She picked her way past the interns, who were trying to help clean up the spilt daffodils from Julian's trip. Having interned at the _Times_ himself during college, Julian had decided that the universe was morally obligated to repay him for his hardships in the form of his own interns to bully. No one bothered to steal his thunder by enlightening the interns about how unimportant he really was.

As Vicki started back to her desk, she felt someone grab her forearm. Taken aback, she yanked her arm away and whirled around, assuming a defensive stance with her hand raised in a fist. Her assailant, Julian, cringed back one step.

"_Jesus, Vick!_"

For a few moments, they remained locked in a standstill, hands raised at each other.

"So…"

"Yeah?"

"Uh… w-who, uh, sent you the flowers?" Julian asked, relaxing his stance, eyes darting to everything but Vicki. He rubbed the back of his neck, checked his watch...

"No idea," Vicki replied, shrugging her shoulders and thrusting her hands into her pockets. "Some creeper, paid with cash, didn't leave a card."

"Ah…"

With each second that passed by, the silence rang louder in their ears. Vicki shifted from one foot to another; Julian rubbed his chin.

"I, uh, heard you were gonna be at the Wayne birthday party tonight," he began. "I was just wondering… well, not wondering, more like inertly curious… are the flowers from him?"

"I told you, it was just some creeper," Vicki sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Are you seeing him?" he asked point-blank. The question blew away her giggles; she opened her mouth, but couldn't grasp for the answer. "Even though you and I-"

"No, I'm not," she interrupted, voice rising up a pitch or two, "But if I were, it wouldn't be any of your business."

"You've got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed.

"Julian, we're noteven_ friends!_" His reaction to her statement was visceral, immediate. His eyes widened, his body tensed and loosened like he'd been sucker-punched in the gut. "We're barely even acquaintances," she elaborated, taking no notice of the interns and Peggy poking their heads out of the break room to witness the exchange. "I'm the drunk blonde you put up with in college, the one you were above associating with; but this isn't college anymore, and it's _killing_ you to consider me a colleague, or an equal, or somebody worth respecting!"

"That… that isn't true," he sputtered a moment later. "Shit, how long have you been waiting to say that?"

"Regardless of how conceited I think you are," she snapped, "that's not the issue."

"I take it the issue is whether or not a relationship that consists only of fucking implies exclusivity," he retorted, folding his arms over his chest. "How many other guys do you have? Are they your _friends_?"

"Fuck you," she barked, hurrying down the hall; away from him.

"Yeah, well, guess I'll have to take a number!"

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

Vicki's day did not improve much after that.

Peggy's alterations to the dress, however small they were, _did_ work fantastically. The navy-blue fabric of the new ruffle at the hem was a little off from the color of the rest of the dress, but now Vicki got to pull out her silver heels from graduation, still intact, and wear them. The only thing missing from her new ensemble was the silver chain she'd left at home, but Vicki did not feel ready to go there just yet. Ignoring so many calls from her mother was already a stretch; if she breezed in just to get a piece of jewelry, her mother would switch from a pleading tone to a passive-aggressive one that would make Vicki sick with guilt.

Vicki wasn't ready for that and it would just annoy her father. His condition would only get worse, and Jesus H. Christ, not thinking about it was _so much better_ than thinking about it. Like Aloe Vera on a sun burn. It feels so briefly relieving that you're willing to deny the burn is even there until it starts to peel and scab.

Despite the triumph of the dress, Vicki's mood soured when Constance rolled around to her apartment in her brand-spanking-new Volkswagon.

"A gift from Drake," Constance trilled as Vicki scooted in, referring to her new 'boy-toy' Mortimer Drake, a favored son of England who was in Gotham to expand his father's business.

The bad tension, created by Vicki's immediate resentment of the gorgeous car, the fact that Constance had been early—forcing Vicki to leave with only a sloppy half-up/half-down hair-do—and exacerbated by the fact that Constance _would not stop gossiping_, made smiling as they sauntered into the Wayne birthday party a torturous excursion in and of itself. Constance's bell-like voice sang like a piccolo at everyone they came in contact with, greeting everyone like old chums, singing out their titles and making a big show of complimenting them on anything she could think of, ranging from children to marriage to business deals to their designer duds. Vicki noticed that Constance never brought herself into the conversation—no mention of _Drake_ passed her peach glossed lips—and every single guest was more than happy to open up their trap. They would do the dumbest thing on earth and unspool their exceedingly high opinion of themselves and their personal business to a gossip columnist.

Every single woman they ran into seemed to glitter with enough diamonds to pay Vicki's rent for two years solid. Vicki also suffered through having her ass grabbed no less than 10 times; Vicki estimated that at least seven of the ten were above the 50-year age limit Vicki had imposed on herself. It was disgusting.

What was worse, Vicki found herself somewhat of a novelty. When conversation finally ran out, Constance would gesture to a silent and awkward Vicki and suggest she take a picture with whoever she was talking to. Vicki felt like she was back in her sophomore year of college, a wedding photographer catering to people who knew the event was all about them and never let her forget it.

Yet this event was not about the socialites Vicki was forced to mingle with. It was about the absent Bruce Wayne. Vicki was stuck at this agonizing event without her single, needed photo of the billionaire eye-candy.

Two hours in, and he hadn't shown up for his own birthday. The butler, Alfred, had stood up in front of the room and informed them that Wayne was running late before proceeding to put them through five agonizing minutes of awkward joke-telling about the average air-speed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut.

After a solid two hours of clenching her fingers in a pervading desire to melt into the floor, Vicki got the second-best option of the courtyard. She'd been wandering through a corridor, pretending to look for the bathroom, and found that one of the windows was a camouflaged stained-glass door to the gardens. Slipping through it, she was delighted to find herself ensconced in a bed of plain green bushes. Vicki wouldn't have been able to stomach any more flowers at this point.

The night air was frigid and Vicki rubbed her fingers together, hoping warmth would come with time and friction. She stayed in the pool of light emitting from the mansion's windows, but braced at the edge, straining her neck to see above the greenery to the tip of Gotham City in the distance. None of the noise—the honking, shouting, alarms—none of it could be heard in the crisp rural air of the Palisades. It was such a relief to settle into silence.

Someone was in the dark with her.

Vicki stopped breathing as her eyes adjusted to make out the form. The moonlight streaming down soon illuminated a statuesque man studying Gotham City with rapt intensity, unmoving. He probably hadn't even heard her come out. Vicki could just glimpse a sliver of his pale face; his arms were folded behind his back, giving him the aura of a European king. He was dressed in some sort of tunic. _Like a sophisticated… ninja_, Vicki thought to herself, suffocating a giggle. He was different from the society-types she had been locked up with inside the mansion.

She couldn't help herself. She pulled up her camera, very aware of the rustling it made against her gown, and snapped a shot of him.

"Gloomy, isn't it?" His booming voice called to her, like a growl, but too smooth and imperious to be considered as such. He sounded like he knew she'd been there all along. Vicki let out a small gasp and dropped her camera, letting the sling around her neck catch it.

"It's worse up close," she replied, stepping tentatively to stand beside him. A few more of his features came into view; his face was lined with a few wrinkles, bronze hair flecked with gray, a thin, unkempt goatee, and harsh eyes squinting toward Gotham. They flickered to Vicki for a second and then back to the city.

"Less a city than a mere abundance of greed and corruption," he continued. It was obvious he that wasn't from around Gotham; he sounded British. Vicki would have liked to have isolated herself from this odd gentleman, but her only other option was to go back inside, where the real abundance of greed was wallowing in itself. Folding her arms over her chest, she slipped into a casual stance beside him to study the city together.

"My professor used to say that Gotham was the angry middle child of a one-night stand between New York and Detroit." Her joke garnered a raised eyebrow. "It's dirty, grimy," she continued, trying to get on his wavelength of thought, "cutthroat, backstabbing, polluted; but it's home," she finished gently. Despite all of her best efforts, Gotham City had ingrained itself into Vicki's psyche and, most of the time she was reluctant to condemn it with such severe words. On this night, however, she was in an awful mood, and Gotham made itself an easy scapegoat.

"Why would you choose such a home?" the gentleman inquired, mellower than before.

"I grew up here," Vicki said. Uncomfortable silence followed when he made no reply. His single-minded stare was intimidating and unchanged, as if Vicki hadn't joined him. "My mom used to be this crusading civil rights attorney, product of the sixties and all," Vicki elaborated, for the mere sake of conversation, "so Gotham was the perfect place for her to set up shop."

"She is disillusioned," he announced, stunning Vicki. "Gotham has descended into little more than a hive for the criminal element. Now there is nothing left to fight for."

Vicki's felt her heart drop into her stomach, perplexed at the thought of her mother as the sad caricature this man thought her to be and his shrewd understanding that she was. First in her class at Vassar, her mother had left a lucrative career with the ACLU to work as a pro-bono civil rights attorney in Gotham during the tenure of Mayor Frederick Stewart, a popular politician who was nonetheless a relic of the 50's era repression. Later, she'd taken up public defending, which offered a meager salary and few moral returns; but when it came time to pay for Vicki's college career, her mother had switched to a position as corporate in-house counsel for a subset of Wayne Enterprises. Her father referred to it as her "Faustian suicide."

"She did stop fighting," Vicki replied when she'd found her voice once more. "But have you heard about the-"

"The vigilante, the 'Bat-man'? He's too late," he replied, his words echoing with a certain finality that grated on Vicki's nerves.

"Not quite," she snapped defensively. The gentleman turned to her, interested in her anger. The full strength of his eyes bore into her own, but she held his gaze. "He's changed things. Even if he doesn't succeed, he's made the city's future…" she turned to see Gotham again, simmering in the distance. "Uncertain. It won't necessarily make this 'descent' you're referring to."

"I shan't be staying to see it, anyhow," he said, pivoting toward the door without releasing his rigid posture.

"You're not the least bit curious about him?" Vicki queried over her shoulder, rubbing her fists together once again, realizing how cold she was. She was glad to be rid of the stranger's company; he was rude, off-putting, and so ensconced in his odd tunic wear, he could have _at least_ offered the top layer to a shivering young woman.

"Why should I be?" he growled, the gruffness of his voice surfacing from beneath the cool, imperious façade.

"Curiosity is the first step to enlightenment," Vicki informed him, whirling around to face him. He was at the door, poised with it half opened. He frowned, as though he were perturbed at her wisdom. "Maybe the B-"

"Odd," he cut her off. "I always thought curiosity killed the cat." He shut the door behind him.

**

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**

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* * *

When Vicki returned to the party, the atmosphere had not changed. If Bruce had shown up, people would have been talking a bit louder, women would be just a bit fainter, and everything would be just a bit more exciting. Before she could be spotted by Constance, Vicki ducked out of the ballroom once more and proceeded to wander up a short flight of stairs. She decided it was a legal thing to do; she still hadn't found the bathroom.

Vicki's high opinion of Wayne dissolved a little as she took in the marble palace he lived in, a gorgeous, gargantuan piece of art inhabited by only two people.

_Stop being jealous that other people have money_, she half-heartedly scolded herself. _If you wanted money, you could have gotten your Master's and counseled these people through their Valium, sex, lies and illegitimate baby fueled lives._

Vicki settled for the first room she found, distracting enough with a television, a grand piano and a wall-sized bookcase. She removed her camera from around her neck and set it down next to the TV. The books on the shelves were encased in glass, some volumes arranged horizontally beneath clocks and antique knick-knacks. The shelves were decorated with an intricate design of white flowers, lacing through the spaces between books. Someone—the butler, most likely—must have been very bored to assemble it all.

She squinted to read a few titles at eye level. _Gray's Anatomy_, _Anatomy Atlas_, _A Review of Microbiology and Immunology_, and other assorted other medical texts crowded the shelf to the brim, reminding Vicki that Thomas Wayne had been a successful cardiovascular surgeon at Gotham General for many years. After breaking her collarbone in the third grade by falling off a swing, she'd had to sit in the emergency room at Gotham General and had studied every word of the Thomas Wayne Memorial plaque because it was all there had been to do.

On the next shelf, Vicki was greeted by her Psychology reading list from senior year. Somewhere below, the readings morphed into sociology and peace studies books. In between, the books were on a broad range of subjects; art, mechanics, American History, European history, Vietnamese language, assorted Greek philosophers, poetry anthologies, Sherlock Holmes, cooking, a version or two of the Bible, and a 'Beatles' encyclopedia that Vicki also possessed.

The last shelf seemed sparser, only half-filled. Books by Geoffrey Chaucer, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Kate Chopin, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Sylvia Plath, John Steinbeck, and Virginia Woolf were packed neatly onto one level; a summary of Ivy League undergraduate readings. It was most likely Bruce's shelf, judging from the pristine, 'barely-opened' conditions. Beneath it was the '_Lord of the Rings'_ trilogy, well used and dog-eared; beneath, '_The_ _Chronicles of Narnia_ and '_Treasure Island'_ floated among a host of '_Star Wars'_ tie-in novels.

Vicki grinned to herself, imagining a 12-year-old Bruce curled up in a corner of this mansion, taking in Tolkien's tedious, in Vicki's humble opinion, prose as if it were oxygen. The next image that came to mind was Bruce leaping around with a wooden sword and crown, pretending to be Aragorn.

Vicki found herself sputtering so hard with laughter at that last mental image that she had to flop onto the piano bench. As she calmed down, she caught a glimpse of Mike Engel beginning his six o'clock broadcast out of the corner of her eye.

"Good Evening. This is Mike Engel with Gotham Cable News…" Vicki gave Engel's TV visage the finger and was about to change the channel when he said something of interest, a bit of a rarity. "… Dr. Jonathan Crane of Arkham Asylum has been arrested and locked into his own asylum following an appearance by the Batman and amid accusations that he has been in league with Mob boss Carmine Falcone. We're going to Trish, live on the scene. Trish, what's been happening?" It flashed to the only person with a soul at Gotham Cable News, on-sight reporter Patricia Yonekura.

"Good evening, Mike," she said, "Uh, the police are urging us to get off the scene, so I'll have to make this quick." Her speaking pace rapidly increased to five words per second. "I'm here outside Arkham Asylum, where police are investigating; there is a CSI team here studying the water piping of all things, fueling speculation that Dr. Jonathan Crane has been spreading something through the water supply. Crane himself was arrested one hour ago and is being questioned by Sergeant James Gordon as we speak. All of this began shortly after a phone call was made from an Arkham administrative assistant claiming that Gotham's new hero, the Batman, was inside. Police were on the scene immediately and I'm told we have some footage of the chase that followed, don't we, Mike?"

The screen flashed away from Trish and returned to Mike's eternally-constipated face.

"Yes, Trish, uh, the Gotham Cable News team got a helicopter over the chase, and here it is again for those of you just tuning in."

Again, the screen flashed, but now it showed spotlights shining down on the highway, a black tank being chased by several police cars.

Shit. She was missing out on the most exciting night Gotham had to offer.

The Batman had engaged the police in a chase that caused thousands in damage; Crane had finally been locked up, causing Vicki to shudder with joy at this development, and it wasn't even seven o' fucking clock! This story could last the night. She should've been _there_, not trapped in a mansion's upper room as she waited around for some playboy to show up for one fucking picture that would end up on page eight! Vicki became so enraptured in the sight of the chase, and in her own longing, that she was caught breathless when the butler came in and "Ahem"-ed.

"Miss," he said, interrupting the broadcast with his clipped, oddly sophisticated Cockney accent. "Miss Mooreston has enquired as to your location. I assume you are Victoria, correct?"

"Correct," Vicki confirmed, smiling nervously as she scrambled to her feet. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, but I couldn't find the bathroom, so I was just wandering around, and I caught the broadcast and-"

"Didn't want to take another dip in high society," he guessed, his curt mouth turning up at the corners. Vicki bit her lip and nodded. "It's understandable and yet, it is unavoidable," he advised her, gesturing toward the cavernous hallway that led back to the stairs and the party room.

"Sorry," Vicki mumbled as she swept out.

"No need to be," he chuckled.

It was time to be Constance's wing man again. Through the hallway, down the steps, and inside the lavish social event, Vicki parted through the crowd, slipping in between shoulders and hips and getting groped at for the 11th time, though this guy was below the 50-year line at least. She found Constance playing a game of cat and mouse with a striking young man who spoke with a heavy Welsh accent. The infamous Drake was preening for her attention, yet Constance was playing cool, as if she didn't know him, keeping her attentions on an aged Southern Bell named Regina George. _Maybe I can convince her to let me out of here…_

"Constance, can-"

"Victoria, darling, Mr. Drake here was just saying he'd love to meet you," Constance said, pulling Vicki into the conversation by the wrist. "Victoria, this is Mortimer Drake, son of Robert Drake, the owner of Prism Corp, the-"

"Glass manufacturing company, I've heard," Vicki supplied, extending her hand to Nicholas in an effort to hurry along the pleasantries.

"I am very pleased to meet you," he said, bringing her hand to his lips for a peck.

"He is just the most charming thing," Mrs. George interjected in a heavy Virginia accent, putting a hand on Nicholas's shoulder. "He was just explaining to me how his father came across the idea…"

Constance leaned over to Vicki's ear.

"Get him out of here, he doesn't understand being on the down-low," she whispered harshly. "And where's your camera? Wayne should be here any minute!"

Vicki clutched at her neck. She realized with sudden dread that her camera was back upstairs with the butler.

"I'm sorry, if you'll excuse me." Vicki ignored Constance's request, leaving her colleague to gaze at her retreating back, shocked mouth gaping like a fish.

Vicki grabbed a handful of her dress as she started back toward the piano room and hurried up the stairs as fast as she could in her constricting skirt. Being away from her camera made her nervous; she'd lost a few valuable ones in her early career. More than that, she felt naked without the protective lens. Overcoming her usual scatter-brained tendencies to keep track of her camera had crafted an odd bond with it.

As she approached the piano room, she heard brusque voices drifting out into the hallway.

"… I didn't have time to observe the rules of the road, Alfred."

Bruce Wayne was in there. Vicki stopped cold in her tracks. A private conversation; it would be very wrong to listen in.

"You're getting lost inside this monster of yours," Alfred warned.

Very wrong. So wrong. Most journalists would have leapt at this; Constance would have exploded with excitement if she'd come upon this chance, but Vicki believed in real news, and in courtesy…

"I'm using this _monster_ to help other people," Wayne replied.

"But Thomas Wayne helping others wasn't about proving anything…"

Now it was devolving into 'Daddy' issues. Though curious to hear exactly what this 'monster' was—probably cocaine or scotch—Vicki took the high road. It took all of her strength to make herself turn around and tip-toe back to the staircase, trying to block out their conversation, but she managed.

Then her camera came back to mind. She stood at the top of the staircase for a split second, trying to pretend she was conflicted about listening in on more of Bruce Wayne's private conversation. Retrieving her camera was a reasonable excuse, he certainly couldn't blame her, and what did she care if Wayne thought she was a bottom-feeding journalist? The butler would understand…

Vicki tip-toed back toward the room.

"It can't be personal, or you're just a vigilante."

… _Huh?_ Vicki strained her ears, leaning against the wall as she crept just a little closer, voices flashing in her head. _Vigilante, monster, Bruce Wayne is back, Falcone? Name rings a bell, monster leapt out and dispatched them, you can just blow Bruce Wayne and he'll _buy_ you Batman, expensive piece of espionage equipment, then for the past two days he's been MIA, radio-silence ever since…_

"Is Fox still here?"

"Yes, sir."

_It doesn't make any sense! He's a pampered brat, not the fucking Batman! _No mention of Batman had passed their lips; the grim voices of Wayne and his butler didn't sound insane, they sounded logical and calculating; but there was only one vigilante in the city, and he'd shown up at almost the exact time that Wayne had reappeared, give or take a few weeks.

"We need to send these people away. Now."

"Those are Bruce Wayne's guests out there! You have a name to uphold!"

It happened fast, that was the least she could say. Bruce Wayne exited, straightening his bow tie, and spotted Vicki.

She was prepared, had been ready for this situation, for him to find her, and started toward him as if she'd been walking the whole time. As she opened her mouth to ask, "Is my camera in there?" she got to the "Is my" and the damned dress, which Peg had repaired with such care, which had been the one thing to go right all evening, went wrong. The navy ruffle wrapped itself around her heel and tangled up her feet, tripping her. Her knees, always in danger around Wayne, collided with the marble floor. A sickening THUD to echoed through the hallway as she landed on her ass and clutched at her knee, ignoring the stunned billionaire and butler, whose deepest secrets she had just overheard. Not that their secrets were on her mind anymore.

"_Fuck!_" Vicki bit her lip, breathing hard through her nostrils, trying to keep her tears at bay. Nothing felt cracked or broken, but pain was blooming through her knee and shooting through the nerves in her legs. A bruised kneecap, perhaps. "Son of a mother-fucking cunt-bitch…"

Wayne knelt beside her, shoving her hands away and pushing up her skirt to examine her knee. He took her knee cap between his middle finger and his thumb.

"Does this hurt?" he asked, pressing his index finger to the top of her kneecap. Vicki pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head. He pressed toward the middle of her kneecap. "Does this-"

"_Fuck yes!_"

He let go.

"Miss Vale?" Alfred had come forward and was staring down at her like a grandfather who'd discovered her lighting up one of his cigars.

"How much did you hear?" Wayne asked gruffly, tugging the torn ruffle of her dress back down to her ankle. He reached for her chest; she recoiled. He raised an eyebrow at her, gesturing to her dress, and she looked down to see an exposed left nipple.

"Nothing," she replied, tugging her V-neck closed.

"Vicki, I need to know-"

"I didn't hear anything," Vicki insisted, sliding away from him. She pushed herself up onto her good knee and managed to force herself to a standing position. Alfred came forward and steadied her, keeping his eyes strictly above neck level as she fumbled with her outfit. "Even if I had heard something, there's nothing to tell," she added more quietly.

She locked eyes with Wayne; after a moment of consideration, and with a severe grimace locked onto his face, he nodded sternly.

They now had an understanding. Years later, Vicki would ask herself if that was where all the trouble had started, if becoming Batman's accomplice had led to so much turmoil. Then she would shake her head and absolve Bruce of any blame. She would remember that it had started much earlier, on the night of her fateful trip to Arkham.

Arkham was so strange a motif for her life, yet it a motif nonetheless. It had turned loose on the city when she was nestled in the safety of the burning Palisades. That wave of terror would heave and subside. Vicki would remember that the next wave—the anarchy, the undoing of everything rebuilt following that night, all of it—was her fault.


	5. Fires of Suspicious Origins

A/N: I dropped my Astronomy course, had to pay the $500 anyway, and wrote this instead. At least I wrote something. Yay!

If anyone knows who Kristen Chenoweth is, please imagine her voice as the assistant who appears later in the chapter. Once again, I cribbed a line or two, this time from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. Which I end up doing a lot when I don't know what I want characters to say. Angelus has been a great influence on my characterization of the Joker.

Sorry if this chapter is boring. I just really like conversations. And although we've all seen Begins, therefore we know what's going on, but Vicki doesn't, so it was kind of hard to convey that without providing just a few of her musings and misunderstandings. I tried to make my adjustments into the movie scenes smooth. And apologies if the ending of this chapter is too cute, but it felt right.

Warnings: Swearing, nothing unusual. Things are set on fire. Fire bad, tree pretty.

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CHAPTER FIVE: Fires of Suspicious Origins

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"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to die in a fire of suspicious origin."

Author Unknown

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"If someone stands in the way of true justice, you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart… Justice is balance. You burned down my house and left me for dead. Consider us even."

Henri Ducard/Ra's Al Ghul

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"_Master Wayne will not be pleased to know about your connections and how much you've put together, no. He was under the impression that he'd been very sneaky, what with the cape and all."_

_Alfred Pennyworth_

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Her mother was calling. Vicki snapped her cell phone open and closed to shut off the call. Her mother had called 11 times and sent eight text messages in the space of two hours. They all read _MAD COW_, which was the family's shorthand code-word for emergencies. The day it was invented, nine-year-old Vicki had been on a school trip to a farm and screamed it out at the man who ran off with her mother's purse.

Yet, in the scope of a few minutes, _MAD COW_ had been knocked down an entire space on the hierarchy of things Vicki was concerned about. She had just discovered that Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham, was the martial-arts/spy/vigilante/freak who ran around at night dressed like a bat to defeat the Mob. Not only that, she now had a mutual understanding with aforementioned Bat to keep his secret identity a… well, secret, and shuffle out so he could go save the city.

Or something. He hadn't really gone into detail on that front.

After the mortifying spill she'd taken, prompting her to mentally vow to burn her dress at a later date, Bruce had scooped Vicki into his arms Prince-Charming style. The speed of his movements combined with her throbbing knee made her feel a little sick.

"Don't destroy what's left of him," Alfred warned as they whisked down the hallway, fresh grief quivering in his lips. Vicki had craned her neck to see him, but he was out of sight within a second. Judging from the context, Vicki could guess it was something about the late elder Wayne, but she at least had the presence of mind to know that questions were forbidden at this juncture. This new Wayne she had stumbled upon, Bruce, he was sober and sparse on the conversation front

"Is your knee-"

"It's fine."

"Vicki, I need-"

"Complete agreement in keeping your secret identity?"

"I need you out of here."

"Oh."

"Everyone, actually."

"… Okay."

When they re-entered the ballroom, 10 seconds apart, Vicki smiled, sang "Happy Birthday," and snapped a photo, a quick shot of Bruce and Mr. Earle in the creepy half-embrace that so many businessmen favored. Constance was still tied up with Mrs. George and Drake, who was getting very touchy-feely. Neither would allow Constance to get to Bruce, her real subject. Though her bad mood was gone, Vicki's _schaudenfraude_ had kicked in, and she allowed herself a moment to revel in Constance's professional tribulations.

Remembering her promise to skedaddle, Vicki slipped out of the party for the last time and toward the coatroom. The buzz from the party conversations dimmed as Vicki sorted through the furs for her ratty, black trench coat, trying to cook up an excuse to make Constance leave early without talking to Bruce. When she finally came upon her coat, shoved between a mink stole and a bright-green silk shawl, she yanked it off the hangar and felt it vibrate in her hands.

Now Vicki was staring at the phone, conflicted. She could ignore Bruce's wishes, embroil herself in an argument with her mother, and get in the way of saving Gotham (_FROM WHAT?_ Vicki's insatiable curiosity screamed, but she managed to suffocate it) or she could ignore the emergency calls, inflate her mother's rage, and climb into Constance's car on her way home, where she'd have to endure being railed at by the gossip columnist.

The phone began to vibrate again. Vicki answered.

"Hello?"

"Vicki!" A shrill voice rang out. Vicki held the phone out at an arm's length as it spasmed with her mother's hysteria.

"Jesus Christ, mom," Vicki replied once the shrieking had subsided. She glanced around to make sure no one else was around to hear the row she was about to have. "What the hell?"

"Where the fuck have you been?" her mother shrieked into the phone, voice trembling.

"I'm working-" Vicki started, but her mother cut her off.

"No! I have been trying to reach you for a week," her mother screeched. "What is going on so that you couldn't even check in?"

It was not entirely Vicki's fault that she exploded. It had been a really bad day.

"_What's going on?_ I'm living on table scraps and working my ass off, that's what's going on!" Vicki railed, struggling to keep her venom at a whisper. "I've been busy because I took some extra assignments." This was only _kind of_ a lie.

"You didn't even respond to anything! Email, calls, texts," her mother said, on the verge of sobbing now. "Vicki, your father is sick."

"Yes, I know that, Mom. You can stop with the dramatics." Ever since her father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, her mother's dramatics had bumped up a notch. Vicki became used to hearing bi-weekly announcements as to the grave condition of her father and wasn't the least bit surprised to hear that he was 'sick.' She figured it was code for her mother wanting some help with the laundry.

"He's getting worse-" Vicki tuned her mother out as she noticed a stream of people trickling into the coat room. Most of them wore frowns, grimaces, or some sulky variation on their faces and began gathering their effects. Vicki could hear outraged murmurs and whispers among the crowd, but ignored them, scrambling for a private location. She stumbled back out of the room and into the next hallway over, crouching against a wall for privacy.

"That doesn't mean he's on his deathbed," Vicki spat, "you know that."

"Until we were robbed!"

Vicki's heart plummeted into her stomach.

"What?"

"Somebody broke into the apartment and your father was the only one at home," her mother explained, dissolving into sobs. Vicki looked at her ratty coat, clenched tightly in her fist; her hands were shaking. The impact of reality was already taking its toll. She leaned against a wall, swallowing hard, trying to get her next question out.

"What happened?"

"The bastard broke his arm," her mother answered after a minute, "but on top of everything else, it's wreaking havoc, and..." The line went silent for a moment. "He needs us right now."

"So, he really is…" Vicki's voice cracked.

"Goddammit, Vicki! Does he have to be dying for you to give a fuck?"

"That's not it," Vicki muttered, pressing herself farther into the darkest corner of the corridor.

"Well, that's the only time you seem to bother checking in," her mother replied bitterly.

There was a complete silence for a moment as Vicki took a deep, calming breath.

"... Where are you?"

"Gotham General."

"I'm on my way."

Vicki snapped her cell phone shut and dropped it into her pocket. She balled up the left sleeve of her trench coat and shoved it in her mouth.

Had she not muffled it, Bruce Wayne and Ra's Al Ghul might have heard the inhuman wail she let out all the way from their position in the ballroom. Vicki choked on it, shaking so hard that the hot tears in her eyes vibrated. Keeping her left hand clutched to her stomach, she slammed her right fist into the wall with all of her strength until her knuckles were bloody and bruised. She finally slid to the floor and yanked the coat sleeve out of her mouth, gasping for breath, trying as hard as she could to stem her shame and fear. She counted to ten in English, Spanish, French, German and Russian. An image of her father, broken and gasping in a hospital bed flashed into her mind and she pushed it away. A parched sob escaped her lips and the sound echoed off of the walls.

Vicki suddenly realized that her surroundings had gone completely silent. In the midst of her mother's dramatics and Vicki's shock, Wayne Manor had emptied.

Her breathing slowed to regularity. She struggled back to her feet and shoved her coat on. Marching back out to the foyer, she took a moment to survey everything, the clicking sound of her heels echoing in her ear. Something acidic was in the air, so pungent that Vicki had to cover her nose. She wiped the forgotten tears out of her eyes and then realized what the smell was.

It was smoke. Standing in the doorway were two large men, silent and stiff, their eyes locked on her.

"I think something's burning," Vicki remarked just loud enough for them to hear, heading for the door. As she passed between them, the taller of the two grabbed her arm and yanked her back. "Excuse me," Vicki hissed, trying to wriggle away. His grip was steel and even as Vicki struggled, he looked straight ahead without even seeming phased. She started clawing at him, bashed him on the head with her camera, stomped on his foot, but he _would_ _not fucking budge,_ and neither would his partner.

Vicki began to cry again. She sniffled, hoping there was a one-in-a-million chance her captor would notice and take pity, and continued to struggle.

"Let go! My father is in the hospital, I need to ge-"

"What's this?"

She twisted around and found herself face-to-face with the imperious gentleman from the courtyard, all the more daunting in the full light. Behind him, Vicki could see wild orange flames consuming the Wayne manor, licking out from the ballroom.

"What the fuck is going on?" Vicki bellowed, continuing to try and hurl herself away from the taller guard. The gentleman almost smirked at her; his lips couldn't quite curl enough for a smile.

"Too curious for your own good, weren't you?" he said, motioning toward himself. Abruptly, the tall guard let go of Vicki and she stumbled into the gentleman, who grabbed her chin, tilting it up toward his eyes. "It seems you shall be spared the horror of watching _your_ home descend into chaos." He lingered tauntingly on 'home.' He pushed her away in disgust, letting her fall to the floor. Her camera collided painfully with her chest as her bruised kneecap throbbed in protest. The gentleman whisked out of the door, his cadre following, leaving behind a single guard.

As she struggled to her feet, Vicki could hear the gentleman command, "No one comes out; make sure."

The doors slammed shut. Vicki gathered her breath, watching through the window as the mysterious gentleman disappeared around a corner. The last guard stared straight ahead, as if neither she nor the flames existed.

_Bruce_.

Vicki yelped as a beam fell in front of the ballroom entrance, drapes dancing in the heat as if possessed. She whirled back to the corridor she had come from, hurriedly trying to remember how to circle back to the ballroom. Another guard stood watch next to the kitchens; he and Vicki ignored each other.

Scrambling around the hallways, her trench coat caught flame and she had to hurl it off, along with her phone. _Fuck_. She had effectively destroyed any hope of calling the fire department. As she continued on, she watched as the fire snaked its way along piles of wreckage, burning up and roaring almost with its own life. Vicki gasped in horror when she finally discovered Bruce, lying on the floor beneath a smoldering beam. She flung herself next to him on the floor and checked his pulse, trying to restrain another bout of tears.

_Crying does not make anything easier, you stupid bitch!_ Once again, she choked back the tears, as well as panic and the gathering smoke in the air. She knelt by Bruce and lightly slapped his face.

"Wake up! Bruce… Bruce, _come on!_ Please, please, Bruce…"

The Wayne heir stirred at last. Vicki yelped when she heard the fire roar again, downing more of the mansion's structure. Bruce moaned and began to push at the beam pinning him to the floor. She tried to help, but their combined efforts only seemed to make the beam trembled slightly. Flames began to creep along the beam and Vicki dropped it as she felt her palm being scorched, letting it collapse onto Bruce again.

_Shit_, Vicki thought as Bruce groaned painfully.

"Master Wayne!—Miss Vale?"

Immediately at her side was Alfred, taking a fraction of a second to shoot her a bewildered look before getting to business. He let the golf club clutched in his hands clatter to the floor and knelt by her, motioning for her to help him. All three of them strained to lift the burning beam, but once again, it only trembled. The old butler leaned back, catching his breath.

"What is the point of all those push-ups if you can't even lift a bloody log?!"

Vicki's eyes widened, not only at the audacity of his statement, but the sheer nerve of saying that when trapped in a burning building. She looked at Bruce for his reaction; he appeared mildly annoyed, but then groaned as he managed to shove the beam off all by himself.

The chandelier to collapse not three feet from where they were.

"If you could, Miss Vale," Alfred said, motioning for her to help Bruce to his feet. She took his arm over her shoulder and followed Alfred's lead, shuffling under the enormous weight of Bruce. Stumbling in the absurd heels she still had strapped to her feet, she coughed as ash swirled through the air. Alfred pulled her through a set of doors, into a room with piano. He played three notes and a nearby bookcase swung open a crack.

The ominous sound of crashing and lurching startled them, and Vicki found herself squeezed close to Bruce as they entered the hidden corridor. Alfred was yelling something, but all Vicki could hear was the marble and glass breaking down outside, the magnificent castle crumbling into itself.

Bruce's strength gave out and they toppled to the floor. Alfred flipped some sort of switch and Vicki felt the sudden sensation of falling. A rush of heat and cool flew past her, and she covered her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

When she opened her eyes, they'd finished their plummet to the bottom and she was cradled in Bruce's arms for the second time that night.

"What have we done Alfred," he rasped, horrorstruck, craning his neck back to see the edge of the fire, the destruction of his legacy. "Everything my family, my father built…"

Alfred tugged at Vicki's shoulder. She rolled away, gasping, clutching at her hand as pain registered throughout her body. She cupped the small spot of scorched skin, watching Alfred tend to Bruce. Blood was blooming slowly through his starched, white shirt.

"The Wayne family legacy is more than bricks and mortar," Alfred assured him.

"I wanted to save Gotham," Bruce lamented. "I failed."

"Why do we fall, sir?" the butler asked. Vicki gazed intently at this scene, the smarmy Prince of Gotham gone, the mysterious Caped Crusader gone, replaced by a crestfallen child. "So we can learn to pick ourselves up," Alfred supplied.

"You still haven't given up on me," the younger man stated, pressing his lips together, bewildered and grateful.

"Never," Alfred replied, grinning almost impishly.

Vicki longed for the walls to swallow her, so that she could stop feeling like an intruder to this tender moment, but it was not to be.

"Before we get to saving the day, I'd like to clear something up," Alfred said. Both men turned to stare at her. "Not that I am ungrateful for your assistance with Master Wayne," he stated as Vicki sank lower into a cringe, "but why the bloody hell are you still here?"

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**"It was very flattering, Miss Vale, if I do say so myself."

"Call me Vicki."

"Victoria. Much more royal," Alfred declared.

"Flattering or not, it deserves to burn."

With those last words, Vicki flung the stupid sapphire dress into the hot, orange flames. They crackled with delight at such a gift and Vicki held her hands out to bask in the warmth. Ding, dong, the dress was dead. The awful, troublesome, cheaply-made, expensively-bought dress was settling into the fire.

Transforming into ash along with the rest of Wayne Manor was almost too dignified a death for it.

With Bruce off on a mission to save Gotham, both Alfred and Vicki were stranded in the Palisades with no expectation of assistance or transportation until at least the next morning. In their hurry to leave, the catering staff had somehow left a van behind as they sped off to avoid the fire. With blankets, hors d'ouvres, and some peach schnapps, Vicki and Alfred had set up a makeshift camp several yards down the driveway, but Vicki insisted on returning to the mansion long enough to burn her dress.

As they made their way back to the van, Vicki pondered the skeletal information she'd obtained about Bruce's latest mission. Or rather, she attempted to ponder, because she'd yet again received so little information. Bruce had done all his martial arts training with a creepy cult that was in league with Dr. Crane, and they were going to use a microwave emitter—whatever that was—to make the city crazy with scary hallucinogenics. Vicki had briefly hoped of meeting one of the cult members again, just to study him from this new perspective, but the guards who'd been keeping them inside during the fire were already gone, probably assuming that their three victims were safely dead.

That was all she could glean from Alfred, as Bruce hadn't really said anything before his departure. Right after she related her reason for still being there—'a traumatic phone conversation,' with no details asked for or told of—he'd gone straight to getting prepared for his 'mission'. Neither he nor Alfred had paid Vicki much heed as they set to readying Batman.

It was a strange sensation, wandering through an open cavern, hearing bats screech from the dark corners. Vicki's breathing had slowed to a ragged gasp as her eyes roamed the stalactites hanging from the ceiling like teeth, a cascading waterfall ushering in slivers of moonlight.

Yet, somehow… None of it compared to the sight of Bruce Wayne naked.

As a man of apparently few reservations, undressing right in the middle of an open cave hadn't seemed to faze him. Vicki's peripheral vision had only allowed a glimpse as she pretended to marvel at his tank, but his silhouette was glorious.

Vicki felt something fluttering in her stomach and, fists clenched, she had turned away. She set about forgetting his naked, Adonis-like form. She resisted any further impulse to study his routine, his costume, his weaponry. Her curiosity was strangely tempered for that moment.

Soon Bruce was bandaged, settled into his suit, and packed for the trip; it felt like watching an older sibling go off to camp. He swept into the tank and had soon zoomed through the waterfall and into the night.

Then it got really awkward.

"So… any chance I could get a ride into the city?"

"I feel safe in assuring you that it would be detrimental to your health to go into the city tonight, Miss Vale," Alfred had said. "Perhaps in the morning when Master Wayne is finished with his duties, I will drive you to your apartment."

"Is alternate clothing out of the question? My dress is kind of…"

"Scorched?" He recommended.

"A pain in the ass," she confessed, kicking off her damned silver pumps.

With all the pomp and chivalry of a true English gentleman, Alfred had helped her out of her dress and in to a sweaty, gray T-shirt, loose black trousers, and a suit jacket for extra warmth; all Bruce's. He'd also bandaged her hand, asking no questions—Vicki was embarrassed about how obviously she'd abused her hand during her 'breakdown'—and sharing a funny story about how he'd walked in on Bruce kissing the maid's daughter when he was 13.

To get back up manor-side, Vicki and Alfred had had to scurry around a dark tunnel with a lone flashlight and scale their way up a ledge that ended up in the south courtyard. The entire time, Vicki had become more emboldened and wheedled Alfred about every last thing concerning Batman's business in Gotham. He was polite, clever, and perfectly evasive. She had to quit questioning him several times in order to simply regain her footing and keep up. Vicki had to hand it to him; he was in excellent health, especially for his age.

"Were you in the military?" Vicki asked him as they strolled away from the burning dress.

"Special Infantry Service. Sort of like the Navy SEALS," he explained when he saw the mystified look on her face. "I served, like my father before me, and his father before him, and so on and so forth. I worked my way up to sergeant, and then, on a mission in Sierra Leone, I was injured in combat. Enemy fire, shot out my whole knee, cap and everything." He paused to offer her a hand into the van. He poured two glasses of the schnapps and gestured toward the hors d'ouvres. Vicki mouthed "no" and took the drink. "Anyhow, didn't want to leave the service, so I took a job as a barman in the mess hall of a military base."

"You're kidding me, right?" Alfred frowned at her as he sipped. "No man lacking a knee cap could climb that well."

"Well, I'm getting to that part," Alfred laughed. "I stayed there for quite some time until Thomas Wayne stumbled upon me. He was just out of medical school, doing some work for 'Doctors Without Borders'. Long story short, after sampling my unique charm" – both he and Vicki snorted at this — "he hired me on as his butler with the promise of paying for corrective surgery for my leg."

"Can't say no to health benefits like that," Vicki remarked.

"He flew me to Gotham just in time to meet his concert-pianist girlfriend before they got engaged."

"Bruce's mom was a concert pianist?" Vicki asked incredulously. Alfred nodded, popping an hors d'ouvre in his mouth.

"Could've gone to Julliard, I expect, but she was too dedicated to reforming the juvenile justice system singlehandedly," he explained, admiration evident beneath his light sarcasm.

"A lawyer?"

"Social worker. Once she birthed the heir to the Wayne Empire, she took some time off, but she was always involved in one way or another, donating money, performing at charity events…" Alfred trailed off, staring at the mansion's fire as his memories of Martha Wayne replayed over the flames.

"She sounds like a very classy lady," Vicki offered lamely, downing her glass. Her hand fell down to her camera, still hanging diligently by her chest after all the bizarre happenings. Out of habit, Vicki snapped a few shots of the conflagration.

Alfred was staring at her, another 'disappointed grandfather' look, magnified in power by the fact that Vicki didn't have a grandfather.

"Personal photos," Vicki chirped. "I'm big on scrapbooking."

"No offense meant, Victoria, but I don't trust that statement as far as I can throw you," Alfred told her.

"Are you sure, Mr. 'Special Infantry Services'?"

He cracked a smile at that.

"I may be a soul-sucking journalist," Vicki admitted, "but I'm poor. I can't let this night be a total waste, or I'll have to baby-sit Professor Gordon's kids until _they're_ in college."

"Gordon?"

"As in, Sergeant Gordon's wife," Vicki informed him. "Is Gordon Bruce's only connection in the Gotham P.D.?"

Alfred visibly flinched, flabbergasted at her knowledge. She realized that neither party knew how much access she had to both of them. Vicki groaned, rubbing her temples.

"I'm not planning a huge exposé," Vicki hurried to assure him, "I was just wondering; I mean… Don't tell Bruce-"

"How close on his trail the Gotham media really is," Alfred finished.

"Must be a perturbing thought," Vicki said, "A few weeks in and the intrepid photographer has already discovered his identity."

"Master Wayne will not be pleased to know about your connections and how much you've put together, no," Alfred conceded quietly, sipping at his schnapps. "He was under the impression that he'd been very sneaky, what with the cape and all."

Vicki swallowed down further comments. She sighed and leaned against the side of the van, exhaustion washing over her in waves. Her hand, the one she'd abused, was throbbing dully, almost a pleasant reminder that she was alive.

Alfred caught her yawning and rubbing her eyes.

"You might as well lie down a bit, Victoria," he advised, gently prying the empty glass from her hand.

"Nah, I-I'm fi-i-i-ne," Vicki stuttered, stretching her arms a bit. "You must be worse, planning the party and the rescue and all…"

"I always enjoyed a good bonfire," Alfred chuckled, patting her on the shoulder. "A bit of shut-eye will do you some good." Vicki obliged without much resistance, climbing farther up into the van and curling up in the reclined shotgun seat.

"What if those cult Shadow guys come back?" she murmured before slipping into a doze.

"I don't think they'll bother us," Alfred assured her, settling into his seat at the back of the van. "Master Wayne will see to that."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

When Vicki awoke, she was back in her apartment. The heat was out again, so she couldn't feel her nose or her ears, but she was still warmly cocooned in Bruce's suit jacket. Someone had tucked her Aunt Elly's quilt around her. Sitting up, she struggled to stay upright and blearily looked at the clock.

It was 10:37 A.M. She was supposed to be in the office an hour and 37 minutes ago. Next to the digital clock sat a note written in elegant script.

_Victoria_

_Your presence is requested on the roof of the Gotham Police Department at approximately ten o'clock tomorrow evening, on October Sixteenth._

_B_

The script of the note was tight, exact, and calculated. The signature was loopy and looked like it had been scrawled in a hurry.

Wincing as she stepped out on to the icy floor, Vicki slid out of the suit jacket. She took the plastic which had previously housed her dress, draped it over the jacket, and hung it at the back of her closet. Within a minute, she had wriggled out of the sweats and into jeans. On her kitchen counter was a shiny, new silver key to her apartment.

Vicki shoved on some boots and scurried down three flights of stairs to Papa's apartment.

"Ay, Vicki," he grinned jovially when he saw her. "You okay? You look a lil' wrong-ways today."

"Did you, uh, did you see the guy I was with last night?" Vicki asked.

"The prince?" Papa mimed carrying someone princess-style up a flight of stairs. "Sure. What kinda friends you 'angin' out with, wearin' hockey masks?"

"A hockey mask?"

"You okay?" he asked again, putting a hand on her back, beckoning her into his apartment. "You remember las' night? Did he-"

"No!" Vicki shook her head vehemently, her blonde curls flying. "I gave him my key, I was just a little… We were at a party, y'know."

"Long as you okay, I don't mind. Just remember," he advised, leaning in toward her, "Always drink with your friends. They're the only ones who care about you." Vicki nodded vigorously, summoning her most earnest eyes, and asked to use Papa's phone.

"May I speak to Ms. Barnes?"

"I'm sorry, she's in a meeting; may I ask who's calling?" trilled the all-too-happy voice of Barnes's assistant, Mary Gregory.

"Mary, this is Vicki Vale. I won't be in today, my father's in the hospital."

"Oh, my God!" Mary gasped like a Sunday mother at an orgy. "I'm so sorry. We've been getting calls all day, everyone's chasing that 'Fear Toxin' story. Chuck, in editing, he's just swamped with trying to get the news out as soon as possible."

"What, uh, what is the latest on that story?" Vicki asked. It might be difficult to find her father if Gotham General was flooded with victims.

"Oh, well, somehow, the water mains were vaporized," Mary gasped, speaking as fast as she could. "And that poison the Arkham doctor put into the system got out into the Narrows; the police are probably going to quarantine it, because someone, not sure who, blew up an Arkham wall, let out all those awful criminals _and_ took out a chunk of the monorail system. And of course, today of all days is the day Maggie Kyle comes in to settle everything with her new job! Oh, and-"

"Wait, wait, who?"

"The new editor, she's taking over soon," Mary stated matter-of-factly.

"Are you saying Dr. Crane is out there in the streets?" Vicki asked, cold fear settling in her stomach.

"Oh, he probably is!" Mary at least sounded distressed now. "Not just him, but all sorts of rapists, and madmen and—Oh, I can't even think about it, it's so terrible! They're going to have to quarantine that area to catch that freak, but then all those poor people get trapped. Anyhow, honey, I hope your father's okay. I'm told Gotham General is _the_ place for the cure, they're cooking it up there right now, apparently the Batman delivered it _himself_."

"Uh… thank you…"

"No proble-"

Vicki hung up.

Bruce had managed, after all his mysterious work, to take her home. She couldn't help but feel flattered.

Vicki had to take the monorail system and then walk fourteen blocks to Gotham General, which was awash with cars, screaming children, panicked people, blaring ambulances, crashing bumpers and honking cars trying to edge into the parking lot. There were two lines, a long one of uninfected people looking for inoculation and a shorter one of paranoid, twitching individuals who were alternately pushed away or pulled into the building and stuck in strait jackets.

She shoved her way into an employee's entrance and crawled along a wall until she got to a nurse's station. When the post was left unmanned for a quick minute, Vicki scrolled through the logs looking for Henry Vale. Room 513.

The stairwell was strangely empty, save for the occasional over-stressed intern, panicked nurse, or imploding doctor.

There were three other people crowded into 513. A somber man of around sixty years was staring out the window; a younger Latino was jotting notes down, his foot in a sling. In the middle was her father, asleep. His skin was sallow, his mouth cracked open, his breathing labored, and his arm was hanging limply in a sling, purple bruises peeking out from under the plastic cast.

Vicki crept in, unnoticed by the other two patients. She crouched down by the side of her father's uninjured arm and kissed him on the forehead. His eyes fluttered open and his face suddenly glowed.

"Hey, sport," he rasped.

"Hey coach," she whispered back. "How are you feeling?"

"Sturdy as a goat," he laughed, fidgeting in his bed. "Little tango with some crazy clown can't down me."

"Where's mom?" Vicki inquired, glancing around, half expecting her mother to pop out of a corner, take the chip out of her own shoulder and stab Vicki with it.

"No visitors, too full," he said. "Saw it all on the news. I was worried sick when you didn't pop up last night. Your mom said…"

"How mad is she?" Vicki groaned, sidling onto the bed.

"She's your mother," he asserted forcefully, struggling to sit up a little. Translation: 'She's ready to disown you. She's dramatic, that's how she is. Deal with it'. Vicki rolled her eyes, curling up next to her father.

"Anything interesting to report?" she asked, determined to ignore anything else serious, such as his injuries, when he'd be home, if his nervous system could even take this without serious, permanent injury…

"There's this Bat guy jumping around," her father chuckled, "your friend Trish on the news said he stopped some kind of apocalypse…"

**

* * *

**

**()()()()()()()()()()**

**

* * *

**"We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds."

"And?"

"And you're wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops."

"_A little help with the rooftops!_"

Before she could gather her wits, Vicki felt herself being pulled up from the fire escape and over the ledge by a dark figure. The 'Caped Crusader'.

"Vicki?" Gordon exclaimed as Vicki dusted herself off. "What are you…?" He glanced from Vicki to Batman to Vicki to Batman.

"I was just following his directions…" Vicki jerked her head over to Bruce. He looked positively absurd up-close in his armor and cape and… the _ears_. His eyes, tiny and isolated among the black, were stuck in a permanent glower. She shivered when his gaze settled on her.

"P.R.," Batman rasped. "I need the people of Gotham to know that they should not fear me. I will not play executioner."

"Are you joking?" Gordon asked in amazement. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, lighten up, Jim," Vicki insisted, yanking a little notebook out of her pocket and scrawling down Batman's words. "I'm assuming this is a photo op, too?"

Batman stayed completely still. When Vicki stopped to take a picture, she finally recognized something. His stiff posture, intransient state—it was the same she'd seen in the 'League of Shadow' members she'd encountered. She had managed to Google them, finding only legends, but it had managed to clear a few things up. They were pretty much ninjas.

Vicki sidled to the right and took a profile picture, his unmistakable silhouette in the blaze of the spotlight, which she kept out of view.

Gordon groaned as he watched the ridiculous proceedings.

"Here…" Batman lightly tossed something small and compact to her. It was a little red cell phone. "A replacement." She grinned at his immovable façade.

"I don't think we need to explain," Gordon cut in as Vicki pocketed the cell.

"Secrecy, subtlety," she reeled off, scrawling down a few more notes, "not getting caught-"

"This better be a one-time thing," Gordon warned, his voice rising as he turned to face off with the vigilante.

"She'll be at my discretion, Lieutenant," Batman growled. "It'll be useful for you to have a source in the media."

"It'll be like teamwork," Vicki chirped. Gordon shot her a look of complete incredulity and Vicki pursed her lips. _Way to be a child, Vick…, _she thought to herself.

"She could be put in harm's way," Gordon admonished.

"Well, we _Times_ employees try not to get killed," Vicki said flippantly. "That's part of our whole mission statement. 'Don't get killed.' It's in the masthead."

"Sarcasm is not mature," the lieutenant snapped. Vicki rolled her eyes and turned back to Batman.

"One last question, Mr. Bat… uh, Batman…" She trailed off, still slightly cowed by his glower. It was a really good one, better than a German housefrau's. "What is _your_ mission statement? What are you trying to accomplish here? Inquiring citizens want to know-"

"I will return Gotham to its citizens," he stated. Vicki waited for an elaboration. She got none. "You're done here," he informed her as she re-pocketed her notebook.

"I'd like my cooperation to be duly noted," Vicki muttered as she acquiesced, climbing back over the ledge. Gordon went to help her, but instead she grabbed his hand and shook it forcefully. He raised an eyebrow. "I'll be fine…"

"It's wrong, picking a curious gal like that," Gordon remarked when she was out of earshot. "She's just a kid. World's full of big, bad things…" He didn't take his eyes off of Vicki as she descended the fire escape, even after she'd reached the street and had been swallowed by a shadow.

He sighed and turned, half expecting his partner in crime-solving to be gone. But Batman, too, had his eyes locked on the blonde disappearing into the night.

"Like this guy." Gordon pulled a plastic bag from his coat. "Armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for the theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card…"

**

* * *

**

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

When Vicki scrolled through the contacts list of her swanky new phone, she found most of her extended family, every employee at the _Times_, Gotham P.D., Gordon's house and cell, Professor Gordon's cell, B—safe to assume she was only allowed to refer to him by letter—Bruce Wayne Cell, Wayne Penthouse—Bruce had apparently already snagged new living arrangements—and a number labeled 'Special Infantry Services'. She grinned and began texting a message to that number.

_So wht m i agreeing 2?_

_B might give you some special crime details in exchange for your cooperation whenever he should need it._

_Ur a chky blok Al_

_Why, thank you, Victoria. May I ask that you stop mangling the English language?_

_Lol. G'nite. _

_Good night, Victoria._


	6. Clown With The Tear Away Face

A/N: I own the Dark Knight! It is a good day…

This chapter/subplot thing was inspired by my Reporting 101 class. I hope I got the characterization of Dent right; he's so pretty…

References: _The Daily Show_, _The Departed_, and _Heroes_.

**

* * *

**

CHAPTER SIX: Clown With the Tear-Away Face

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I am the clown with the tear-away face,  
Here in a flash and gone without a trace

"The Nightmare Before Christmas"

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"_Were I in the mood for payback, I could do all sorts of things to you…" _

_Harvey Dent_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

Julian at his eyes in frustration, blearily trying to concentrate on the assignment in front of him. An elephant. _Vishnu_ the Elephant. People were dying on the streets and this was what he had to write about. Sure, Julian knew the importance of news of the non crime variety, something with a certain level of human interest… sort of; but the death of an elephant was just not something you reported in the midst of gang violence and panic in the streets.

He let his head slide down and bang onto his keyboard with the deafening _THUD_ of his doom. Perhaps he was overdramatizing it.

"Knox."

Julian dragged his head up and swiveled in his chair to see the imposing figure of the news editor, Doug Wilson, hovering over his desk.

"Hurry up on that Vishnu crap if you want a real story," Doug informed him, grinning as he took a drag of his cigarette.

"What is it?" Julian asked, his features perking up like an expectant puppy's.

"'Citizens for Batman'," Doug sang, waving a piece of paper in his face as a stand-in for the assignment.

"A fan club?"

"A lobbying group that wants to be taken very seriously; wants to change the laws for the Bat," Doug huffed, shrugging his shoulders. "C'mon, you'll love it. I'm gonna get Slutty Chick to be the photog on it."

"'Slutty Chick'? I thought you changed her name to 'Batgirl'."

"She's still the only chick around here who's deigned to sleep with you," Doug laughed, flicking his still burning cigarette into a nearby trashcan.

"I'm really glad we have this closeness," Julian groaned, running his fingers through his hair as Doug skipped off. He contemplated the conclusion of what was hopefully his last paragraph detailing Vishnu's life story. Ever.

He repeated his head-on-the-keyboard-_THUD_.

He had not predicted working with, fucking, and worse, _pining_ for Vicki Vale once she was out of reach. It tortured him to no end these days that, with his career trudging along and his personal life completely on hold, she was _all_ he could think about. He hadn't gotten a chance to talk to her since his disastrous reaction to her flowers.

_THUD, THUD, THUD._

"Julian?"

And just like that, Vicki appeared out of thin air.

God, he wanted to touch her, make sure she was real. Unfortunately, Julian's haughty self-defense mechanism snapped into place.

"What do you need, Batgirl?" he muttered, pretending to shuffle around some important papers. When he'd adjusted all the piles without hearing a reply, he looked up to see her in the middle of opening her mouth to say something. The first thing he noticed was the collar of her blue shirt was open just enough to see her slim, gold necklace slip into her cleavage; the second thing was the thick blue envelope she had clutched in her hand.

With shaking fingers she dropped them on his desk and stepped farther into the obscurity of the cubicle. Julian unfolded the envelope, perplexed, and scanned the first few pages.

It was a subpoena. If Vicki didn't sit in front of the Grand Jury and testify to all the details of her meeting with Batman, how he'd contacted her, and give up his identity, she was going to serve a possible 18-month jail sentence.

"Jesus, Vick," he breathed, flipping through to find the quick scrawl of Judge Lawrence Turpin. He heard a sniffle; Vicki was leaning against the cubicle wall next to him and she was on the verge of sobs, her pale face red and scrunched up with fear. She had her head in her hands and slid down to the floor. "What are you going to do?"

"What… what _can_ I do?" she exclaimed under her breath. "I'm panicking, I'm drawing a blank here. You… you always got so much flack at the _Daily Gotham_, I figured you'd know how to deal with something like this," she admitted, inhaling and exhaling deeply in an effort to keep calm.

"We both took Media Law-"

"And everything we learned is telling me they shouldn't have been able to do this!" she squeaked, her dread becoming more apparent in the creases on her forehead and the tousled blonde curls entwined with her fingers.

"Are you… are you going to tell them-"

"No."

The finality of her terse reply echoed in his ears. Girl had balls, steadfast resistance in her protection of sources, Julian had to admit that; but as he watched her on the verge of a breakdown, Julian felt a surge of unkind pity welling within him. Someone hand-picked by the craziest motherfucker vigilante this side of Zorro and with her kind of contacts within the justice system should've been able to deal with a possible jail charge without crying to her former superior.

He still hadn't decided whether he liked her better this way or not, but that was beside the point. If Garcetti succeeded in making Vicki testify or imprisoning her, it would be open-season on any reporter who presented suspicious evidence of Batman's activities.

Besides, what prince could resist a damsel in distress?

"You're right," he sighed after a moment. She peeked out from under her hand. "They shouldn't have done this," he assured her, standing up and leaning against his desk. He seized the subpoena and began to flip through it again, paying closer attention to the words. His eyes strayed on the particulars of 'successful investigation.' The language was broad, confusing, and too political to be in the interest of real justice. "You're gonna need a lawyer," he muttered.

Vicki snorted in reply, conjuring in her mind, the smug look on her mother's face when Vicki came crawling to her for help. They hadn't exactly been on speaking terms for a while.

"You're gonna want to proceed with caution, remember that certain people can still be bought-"

"I'm poor."

"Didn't say you'd be the one buying," Julian warned. "We've just gotta figure who we can get leverage against with our own source—Wait, Dent is in on this?" Julian asked incredulously once he rewound his gaze. Sure enough, he'd skipped the assistant district attorney's signature at the back of the packet. Julian's head practically lit up like a light bulb. He got down to his knees and settled in against his desk at eye-level with Vicki. "Y'know, Nealon just showed me this article he proofed for Griffin about Dent running as a dark horse, third-party candidate."

"I know, right," Vicki replied derisively, dabbing at her eyes with a wadded-up paper towel. "First the shake-ups in I.A., then taking on Batman; this guy should practice bending over and taking it in the ass."

"Griffin mentioned the investigation," Julian murmured, "but no firings. Did Gordon tell you something?"

"It was off the record," Vicki said, shaking her head. She tapped the subpoena. "But if he knows about this, he's having an ulcer."

Julian flipped the subpoena so hard that it flew across the cubicle and bounced off the wall, scattering all over the floor.

"Vicki, our readership is up 37% since _your_ photos debuted, so Barnes and the rest of the staff are going to want to know about this," Julian explained, lining up the players in his mind, excitedly visualizing his pitch at the editorial meeting. A charismatic attention-whore's dream. "We do a staff editorial on this, that's a huge chunk of Dent and Garcetti's votes. Garcetti's base weakens a little, but Dent's base dissolves into nothing. He can't stand on a platform of law enforcement when he goes after the only people enforcing it."

"Bennett won't go for it," Vicki insisted gravely, invoking the name of the dreaded, cantankerous Jackson Bennett, the _Gotham Times_ owner. Julian and Vicki had both been subjected to his wrath during their internships for crimes ranging from Vicki's decaffeinated coffee to Julian's joking about how much free, positive press Garcetti got in the _Times_.

"Barnes won't listen to him," Julian assured her. "She wants to 'go out with a bang'."

Vicki nodded, resting her head on her kneecap momentarily and shuddering with one last sigh as she gathered her wits.

"Great," she moaned. "Either I'm in jail or I go from 'Slutty Chick' to 'Incompetent Chick'. Can't even handle a legal document without crying…"

Julian cringed at the thought of Vicki overhearing the earlier conversation with Wilson. He took her hand and clasped it in his, squeezing it, warming it.

"Nah… you're 'Batgirl' from here on out," he promised. All his despair from the morning was wiped away when she beamed at him.

* * *

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

The personal promise of a staff editorial from Barnes was all Vicki needed to bolster her confidence. After getting past a meddling secretary who babbled something about how Mr. Dent had an appointment with a Ms. Dawes very soon, she was now leaning in the doorway of Harvey Dent's office, admiring the polished mahogany desk and the abundance of law books abiding on his shelves. '_The Prince'_ by Machiavelli, '_Leviathan'_ by Thomas Hobbs, and even Thoreau's '_Civil Disobedience'_. What a laugh.

Finally, the dickwad set down his phone and sat up, hands steepled in front of him on the desk, his demeanor bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

"Victoria Vale, the _Gotham_ _Times_," Vicki introduced herself curtly.

"Well, Miss Vale, what can I do for you?" Dent asked, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of him. Vicki plopped down, leaning back with her legs crossed and tossing the subpoena at him.

"I was just wondering if your office was familiar with the 'reporter's privilege'," she trilled, settling into the chair as he examined the envelope.

"Of course," he replied, shoving the papers aside. "Authorities cannot compel a journalist to reveal the identity of an anonymous source for a story."

"Imagine my surprise when you subpoenaed me," Vicki continued, leaning forward to emphasize her point. He mirrored her actions. "See, just because I take pictures doesn't mean I'm not a reporter," she mock-whispered.

"I believe the term is 'photojournalist'," he mock-whispered right back, his damn dimpled smile expanding. "I'm a fan of your work, Miss Vale," he said, gesturing to the articles and photos he had pinned to a bulletin board. Vicki's pictures of Carmine Falcone spread-eagle on the spotlight had been eclipsed by the profile of Batman. "I think you've got great potential."

"I'm not here to discuss my burgeoning career," she demurred.

Dent sat back, the corners of his mouth withdrawing just a little, and raised an eyebrow at her. The buzz of ringing phones and bustling lawyers flowed in the background, but Vicki had trouble concentrating on anything but the sheer charisma of the man in front of her. He moved with a colloquial ease and had the charm of an old movie star glimmering behind his eyes. No wonder the man thought he could get elected in an inevitably tight race next year.

"You sure you wanna have this talk without a lawyer present?" he asked in a low voice.

"Wouldn't be here if I didn't," Vicki shot back. He sighed, the grin sliding off of his face.

"In that case, I'll continue." His voice deepened, resonating with a certain authority that had not been present before. "The 'reporter's privilege' doesn't extend to criminal cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe, based on information obtained from non-media sources, that a crime has occurred, and that the information sought is essential to a successful investigation."

"Okay…" Vicki was slightly astounded by his seemingly encyclopedic speaking abilities. "I know that there is some level of interdepartmental rivalry," she began, "especially since you're on a witch hunt; but Lieutenant Gordon interrogated me, and-"

"Miss Vale, this office believes that your personal relationship as a former student of Lieutenant Gordon's wife and occasional caretaker of his children may have affected the course of the investigation-"

"He'll vouch for me. This shows a complete disregard for the competency of the Gotham Police Department, of Lieutenant Gordon, his policies, and his current efforts to continue fighting the Mob," Vicki objected, cutting him off. She'd never admit it to anyone, because she was supposed to be objective, but casting doubt on Jim Gordon offended her deeply. "You're undermining the department just when they might be able to do something," she elaborated. Dent let out a short, harsh laugh that startled her.

"Miss Vale, you don't have a leg to stand on." He rummaged through a stack of newspapers and tossed one at her that was dated one week previous. "3B, right column," Vicki followed his instructions to a piece about Detective Arnold Flass's role in the Fear-Toxin riots. "Just in the past three weeks, your paper has published nine editorials condemning not only the police, but Gotham's entire justice system."

"So this is, what, payback?" Vicki retorted.

"You had contact with a well-known vigilante, Miss Vale," he asserted haltingly for emphasis. "Were I in the mood for payback, I could do all sorts of things to you," he trailed off and there was an awkward beat. "Not the least of which is twisting that into an accessory charge," he added.

"You wouldn't have any grounds," Vicki muttered. "And are you forgetting that no charges from that subpoena have actually been properly filed? I checked on it, there's a delay. How can you try the Batman for a crime he hasn't even been officially accused of?"

For once, Dent didn't have a light, off-handed answer prepared. He faltered, his mouth setting into a straight line as he grasped for a neutral response.

"I guess you're a shoe-in on the conviction for damage to public property," Vicki continued, folding her arms over her chest. "But it's going to be unpopular, something that a dark horse, independent political candidate can't afford with the primaries in March."

A moment passed, the air completely still, a pregnant silence hanging between them. Without any warning Harvey shot out of his chair and rounded on her. Vicki tensed until he made for the door, kicked away the stand and let it plod shut.

"Miss Vale," he bellowed, "I suggest that if you want to contest this, then you get-…"

The door shut. He dropped the angry façade and leaned against his desk, looming large and close in front of her. "If I provide you with this information," he growled, pointing a finger at her, "I need your guarantee that you protect me with the same fervor you protect him with." He jabbed a finger towards the profile photo of Batman on the bulletin board for emphasis.

"Why?" Vicki asked, cocking her head to one side and delicately raising an eyebrow. Dent grinned at her in response.

"Because what I'm about to tell you will help with that staff editorial your editor is cooking up. It'll put pressure on Garcetti, and that's good for you."

Vicki inhaled sharply, considering his offer. She reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew her little notebook.

"You have my word," she said, clicking her pen.

"Garcetti forced my hand with this subpoena," Dent explained in a low voice. "He's drawing up charges on everything in that document-" he gestured to the subpoena "-illegal use of force, being a public nuisance, damage to public property, and that'll go through by the end of the week, but Garcetti's got a couple more in the works. To my knowledge, he's going for additional charges of kidnapping, criminal endangerment, and impersonating a law enforcement official."

"Impersonation?" Vicki's pen halted.

"He's throwing everything on the wall to see what sticks," Dent shrugged.

"But why is he working so hard at it?" exclaimed Vicki. "We've published polls that show Batman is incredibly popular."

"I've seen," he confirmed, pulling out his most recent _Times_ issue and scanning it. "56 percent of citizens approve of the job Batman is doing, and that number's rising." He tossed the paper aside and ran his fingers through his hair, reminding Vicki of a dashing prince. "But the bureaucrats are not happy about someone highlighting their ineffectiveness."

"Garcetti's gotta know his approval ratings will take a hit from this," Vicki murmured, jotting down '_Garcetti threatened, more to it?'_

"Why do you think he's having me take time out of Internal Affairs to prosecute it?" Dent grumbled. "And why do you think he chose now? Everyone's still so worried about Fear Toxin and Arkham inmates." He paused, as though worried that someone could possibly hear through his three-inch-thick door. Vicki cleared her throat and Dent shot her a look before leaning in just a little closer, inches away from her face. "In the course of my investigations with Internal Affairs, I've found a paper trail from a few of my suspects, particularly detectives Nicholas Wuertz and Dick Abrams, which leads to one of my colleagues."

"Garcetti?" Vicki breathed. Dent backed away, almost regretting his words.

"I don't have anything definitive," he sighed. "The cases of those two men have been unceremoniously closed by those above me."

"I can't just use a broad term like 'paper trail'; My editor will disapprove," Vicki grumbled. She scrawled '_Garcetti + Maroni?'_ when she had a fleeting memory of Mazzala talking about a Detective Abrams.

"Do some more investigating," Dent advised, rounding back to his seat and settling in with another smug grin.

"Give me more," Vicki demanded, frustration building when she reviewed the sparse information she'd gotten. "You promised something that would pressure Garcetti. A corruption or malfeasance accusation will do that."

"I never said anything about corruption," Dent supplied hastily. They locked eyes for a moment; it became clear that he wasn't going to say anything more. Vicki would have liked to press until she got something more concrete, but Dent was being the perfect, oily politician. Dealing with his rhetoric was just going to frustrate her.

"You gonna make sure I don't get in more trouble for this?" Vicki groaned, shoving the notepad back in her pocket and rising out of her chair.

"Miss Vale," Dent called out to her as she went for the doorknob, "I think that this subpoena, in fact, the entire investigation, is a joke, and I apologize profusely that you have become a target of their defense, but I don't have the power to do anything yet." He managed to sound very earnest; it confused Vicki.

"Did you really just manage to simultaneously demand my vote and tell me you're not helping?" she asked, yanking the door open with a heave.

"Depends," he smirked, "how'd I do?"

* * *

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* * *

"Holy superlatives, Batman!"

James Gordon Jr. rolled his eyes at his mother and adjusted the bat ears that adorned his little blonde head. He did not appreciate her sarcasm following his declaration that he had been the 'bestest' of all the Batmans at the trick-or-treating party. Although his ears, mask, cape, and boxing gloves had seemed a little rag-tag, his 'arm-candy' had lent him a measure of legitimate connection with the Batman.

Vicki had ended up taking the Gordon children trick-or-treating that year. With half of the escaped Arkham inmates still out on the streets and Fear Toxin precautions still at a high level, Gotham Public Schools had thrown together a few Halloween festivals where the children could trick-or-treat in their classrooms without fear of… well, there were just too many possible negative outcomes from regular trick-or-treating. After Jimmy had let it slip that his chaperone was the famed _Times_ photographer who had snapped the first shot of the Batman and interviewed him, Vicki had spent the better part of the night explaining the 'reporter's privilege' to every single parent who felt that they were entitled to know the Batman's identity. Vicki'd also had to weather a storm of Batman's fans who begged her to pass on a message of gratitude, respect, and props for 'some fucking awesome moves'.

"Don't think he appreciates my biting wit," Barbara remarked, winking at Vicki as she pushed her son toward the bathroom. "Brush your teeth. You can sort your candy in the morning."

An aggravated Babs stomped forward and peeled off the plastic cat mask she'd worn as her costume.

"You said I could stay up late and watch _The Shining_," the red-headed spitfire grumbled, folding her arms over her leotard-clad chest and mirroring the stance her mother always made whenever she wanted something done.

"That was before you decided to use your karate to convince Officer Paoletti's son that ninjas are better than pirates," Barbara replied. The thirteen-year-old whirled around to fling an accusatory finger at Vicki.

"You told?!"

"You almost broke his nose!" Vicki chided. "I had to."

Babs ran into her room and slammed the door. Barbara rapped on the door a few times with her knuckle.

"_Do not _break anything this time," she warned. Shaking her head, Barbara gathered up the dropped candy bags and set them on the dining room table. "Now I know why thirteen is such an unlucky number," she sighed. "Just kill your kids before they get to that age…" Vicki laughed good-naturedly, leaning against the doorway as Barbara tended to her disheveled living room. _The awkward 'waiting for payment' stage… I did work something out, didn't I?..._

"And that covers it for taking care of Wednesday and Pugsley," Barbara said, pressing a wad of cash into Vicki's palm. "How's your fifteen minutes of fame going?" the red-head continued, shoving the cat mask and bat ears into a toy chest.

"They never tell you that twelve of those minutes are a rectal exam," Vicki muttered, rubbing her temple.

"Jim practically had a conniption fit when he read about your situation in the paper," Barbara replied, dropping the children's coats to put her hands on her hips in disapproval.

"Really, it's okay," Vicki said, shrugging it off. It was kind of nice to have the entire staff galvanized behind her. The event had also erased, or at least allowed Vicki to ignore, much of the bad tension with her mother, who was in full 'crusader' mode now that her daughter was up against the establishment. "I like the bonus, I like the respect," she reeled off, "I even like it when Vaughan glares at me across the table at staff meetings 'cause he's an impotent Nazi with a bug up his ass the size of his ego and he knows I'm better than he is…"

"What is this preoccupation with rectums?" Barbara giggled.

"Peg and I watched the first season of 'Queer As Folk' yesterday on Youtube instead of working," Vicki admitted. Barbara's eyebrows shot up and she gasped, lobbing a winter cap at Vicki as the blonde photographer snickered fiendishly.

"Failing every class your first semester didn't teach you anything, did it?" Barbara warned, trying to smother her obvious amusement.

"Hey, it's not like I was too drunk to even show up for work," Vicki trilled. "And besides, look at me now. I'm sober and successful and… possibly up for a Pulitzer," she hinted, buttoning up her coat as she turned toward the door. As she expected, Barbara grabbed her shoulder and urged her back.

"Excuse me?" the red-head pressed. Vicki bit her lip and smiled so widely that she could feel her cheeks expanding up to her ears.

"Barnes wants me to submit the 'Bat' pictures," she chirped proudly. "I mean, it's a long shot," Vicki backtracked for modesty's sake. "And it would look good for Barnes since she's just about to leave. But if Garcetti succeeds in locking me up, wouldn't that just be the best 'fuck you' to the establishment?"

"It won't happen," Barbara ensured, rubbing Vicki's shoulder like a mother. "Trust me, between Jim and your mother and the population of Gotham, the D.A. can't touch you. You're safe."

* * *

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

"Aw, come on, sugar, I got the dough…"

"Hey, Vicki!"

Vicki cringed as she debated whether or not to acknowledge Hannah the Happy Hooker calling out to her. She had her hand on the doorknob, fingers poised around her keys, and she was minutes away from crawling into bed with a microwave burrito to reread Susan Sontag's '_On Photography'_.

Biting her lip, she turned toward Hannah. The working-girl was trussed up in thigh high black boots and a silk faux kimono that was riding up to show a bit of her matching panties. Her hair was spiking all over her head and her eyes were caked in slanting mascara and black shadow. She ducked out of the embrace of an unkempt man, waving her fan and smoking as she gestured wildly to Vicki to join her amidst three clown-masked men. Vicki trudged over.

"Hey, Han, what's up?" she said, without conviction. Hannah must've been drunk, because she immediately looped an arm around Vicki's neck like a drinking buddy.

"Vicki, these are my friends Dopey, Sneezy, Happy and Doc!" Hannah slurred, pointing to each in turn. Bare-faced blonde Dopey and brunette Sneezy, the one Hannah had stepped away from, were standing in the middle of the sidewalk, hunched over their cigarettes, masks pulled up over their stringy hair.

Happy and Doc still had their masks on; Happy was a hulking figure that towered over the rest of the group and spindly Doc was climbing onto a car parked by the street.

They were probably thugs on the lookout for Halloween meat; not Mob, those guys were slicker dressers, but not gang, as they had no affiliation symbols.

Vicki tried to distance herself, but Hannah seemed to have fused to her side.

"Hey, guys," Vicki mumbled, eyes darting from one clown to another. Doc, or rather Doc's clown mask, stared at her; Dopey and Sneezy nodded in her general direction. "Having a good time?"

Happy snapped his mask off to reveal a sullen, dark-skinned face whose features seemed to perk up once he got a full view of the sultry blonde. Not that Vicki felt particularly sultry; escorting the Gordon children around did not allow for an abundance of care for appearance.

"Just got a little better," Happy replied softly, withdrawing a lighter and a carton of cigarettes from his camouflage jacket. He pulled out two and offered them to Vicki. Intrigued by his lilting speech, tinted with a distinctly foreign accent, she clamped her lips on the cigarettes as he lit them and took one for himself. He grinned, revealing a gold canine tooth as he savored his smoke.

"Well, Vicki and I should be gettin' in…" Hannah slurred.

"Where's that accent from?" Vicki inquired, taking a drag, ignoring Hannah almost solely from her dislike of the woman. Hannah was now simultaneously trying to drag Vicki toward the apartments and fending off offers of additional booze from Sneezy. Doc had run off somewhere.

"The same place as I am," Happy answered, "From Haiti."

"You left the Caribbean for _this_?" Vicki snorted, yanking her arm away from Hannah.

"This is the land of opportunity," he said in a booming, baritone voice, lifting his arms up wide and using his considerable arm span to intimate his point. "In Haiti, a man is the product of his environment. Here, environment is the product of a man." He let his arms fall down to his sides and inhaled his cigarette again, keep his sensuous brown eyes trained on Vicki.

"Gotham's got great production values," she muttered, puckering her lips suggestively around the cigarette. "The fewer rules you have to follow, the easier it is, I guess."

A loud whoop interrupted their exchange. Doc had returned and was wobbly back to them on a—presumably stolen—bike. He pedaled up to Vicki and braked just inches away from her. She backed up against Hannah and raised an eyebrow at the only man left in his clown mask.

"Happy and I, we're whimsical guys, gotta be ourselves," Doc said in a slow, nasal drawl. He jumped off of the bike and kicked it toward the car, eliciting discouraging groans from his mates. Dopey and Sneezy rolled their eyes; Happy folded his arms over his chest and studied Doc with annoyance. Vicki felt Hannah hugging her closer.

"This guy's a fuckin' nutjob," Hannah whispered, sounding startlingly sober.

"Me, well, I just got all these pent up emotions," Doc continued, sashaying up to Vicki again. He walked like a drunk, but there was no alcoholic stench around him. His clothes were tattered and dirty, but had perhaps once been a suit rather than the utilitarian rags and cargo pants that his buddies wore. "I need release," he whispered, leaning in close. Vicki ducked back and shot him a look of distaste. Hannah reached down and squeezed her hand in fear. "That's something these ru-u-u-ules just don't give you."

"You look like you're having a jolly time expressing yourself," Vicki said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. She took a last drag of her cigarette, flicked it to the ground by her feet, and turned back to Happy with a soft, flirtatious smile. "Happy Halloween," she murmured just loud enough for him to hear, succumbing to Hannah's yanks toward the apartment building's door.

Skeletal fingers snapped around her wrist. She looked back to see Doc, his head cocked to one side, the damn clown mask still on.

"Where're you going?" he laughed, his tone growing more and more high-pitched, like someone had a hold on his throat. "No costume, heading in early? Sounds like you need to express yourself, or you might just-"

"Back off, Joe," Happy warned, grabbing the clown away from Vicki.

"Guy's got a point, though," Sneezy said, sidling up to Hannah. "Can't go in yet, Ling-Ling…"

"Aw, we both want Vick to stay out," Doc/Joe laughed, hanging limp in Happy's grip, fumbling with something in his jacket pocket. "Or she might just… explode!"

The splintering group on the sidewalk was knocked to the ground as the car beside them thundered and burst into flames, the hood of the car leaping into the air from the force of the explosion. Vicki covered her eyes from the sudden, sweltering heat and surveyed the scene, yelping when she saw the hood of the car clatter into the middle of the street. Too panicked to check on the four thugs, she staggered up, gripped Hannah's hand, and the pair made their way to the door. Vicki could numbly hear the Haitian's baritone ringing out and Hannah shrieking at her as she fumbled for her keys, finally forcing her way through the door.

The two women collapsed onto the floor, trying to climb over each other.

"Where the fuck did you find those guys?" Vicki wheezed, trying to throw Hannah off of herself. The frazzled prostitute scrambled up and gripped for the stair railing.

"Me? You're the one who kept talking to them," she screeched, clutching her chest to stem her hyperventilating. "I called you over so I could make an excuse to leave!"

"Sorry, I can't speak whore," Vicki growled, shoving past her, yanking out her phone to call the fire department. "… You told them your name was Ling-Ling?"

"It's Halloween," Hannah snapped. "Pardon me for having some fun."

"Does the delivery guy know you're having so much fun?" Vicki said in a mock-gossip voice. As they rounded the railing to their floor, Hannah grabbed her elbow.

"You can't tell Stuart about this!" she insisted, appearing genuinely scared now, her raccoon eyes wide like saucers. "Stuart, he doesn't know I'm a… he doesn't know about what I do."

"… I wasn't actually going to tell him," Vicki scoffed. Hannah sighed in relief and turned back to her own door. Vicki lingered, watching Hannah walk neatly in her high heels even as she hiccupped from her brandy-drinking. The blonde felt a twinge of remorse for making her so worried. She didn't really have any reason to despise Hannah so much since Papa had fixed her door, preventing Hannah's gentlemen callers from showing up on Vicki's doorstep.

When Hannah's door had swung shut, Vicki finally entered her own apartment. The heater was finally working and Vicki was thrilled that she could no longer see her own breath. There was a lucky warm-front on this Halloween night anyway. She shed her coat and as she spoke to an exhausted fire department operator, she drifted over to her window and peeked between the dusty blinds. The fire was raging orange in the night; the thugs had scattered. Although she managed to keep from demanding a police watch, Vicki couldn't help but be discomfited. The crazy one, Doc or Joe, the one who'd blown up the car, had sounded vaguely familiar. It was probably his laugh, cribbed right off of the main character from '_A Clockwork Orange'_, or something.

An hour later, when her microwave burrito was steaming and she had crawled into her 'Yummy Sushi' pajamas, there was a knock at her window. A large mass was silhouetted in the light; perhaps Happy had come to call, or Doc had grabbed a larger jacket.

Shaking a little when the knock reoccurred, louder this time, Vicki dashed into her room and slid a revolver out of her drawer. Sidling back over to the window, she clutched the revolver in front of the window and pulled at the blinds.

She smothered a cry when she saw Batman perched on her fire-escape. He banged persistently at her window again.

"Holy fuck, Batman!" Vicki whispered, cranking the window open. "Are you tapped into the 911 system?"

"I was in the neighborhood," he barked in a throaty snarl of his old voice.

"Please don't use that voice," Vicki asked, gesturing for him to come in, "No one else is around, and it makes me feel like I have a cold." Batman stayed planted on his perch outside, cowl and grimace and ears completely still, and then swung in fluidly.

"Didn't figure you for a gun enthusiast," he remarked in his normal voice. Vicki rolled her eyes and returned to the kitchen, setting the revolver down on her counter.

"My dad's a second amendment enthusiast," she sighed, fiddling with her burrito, dropping it when she discovered it was still too hot. "That's how he met my mom. When I moved out of the dorms, he made sure I had a good self-defense revolver and knew how to use it," she explained. "I'm a little out of practice, though."

".357 Magnum," Batman muttered to himself, studying it. "Good dad."

"Well, you're not here to discuss firearms…"

"Gordon told me about the subpoena."

Vicki groaned and hoisted herself onto the counter next to where Batman was standing so that she could feel a little closer to his height.

"My mother is a highly-paid, Vassar-educated lawyer," she informed him, "and she has personally assured me that I won't even have to testify. The claims are unsubstantiated, they'll never be able to try you, and it's getting too close to the primary election season for anybody to go forward with this."

"That's not what I was asking about," he murmured, his gaze boring into her. She inhaled sharply when she caught his meaning.

"Oh… even if it got to that point, ratting on you isn't a possibility," she said, pushing up the sleeves on her 'Yummy Sushi' pajamas to fidget with her festive spider bracelet. She wasn't sure whether or not she was offended by his doubt.

"You have a life," he explained softly, taking his gaze off of her to roam her tiny apartment. A negligible kitchen, a beaten-up love seat, and two doors that led off to a bathroom and her bedroom, though its size made it more suited to be a closet. The only remarkable thing that could demonstrate Vicki's life were her walls, where she crowded mostly black-and-white photographs, framed and not, photos she liked, photos she had taken, famous photos, and a large reproduction of Anne Leibovitz's Rolling Stone cover with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. "I can't expect you to put it on the line-"

"You're not allowed to lecture me on potential loss of life," she interrupted, uncomfortable with the sudden jettison into personal territory. "And anyway, looks like Garcetti's got ulterior motives for wanting your identity other than for the 'greater good' and the upholding of the law."

"Did you get a tip?"

"Not a strong one. I spoke to an A.D.A. and he gave me something about bureaucrats and a paper trail; not a lot to go on. Did Jim get anything?" Batman didn't reply; in fact, he seemed to ignore the question outright for staring off into space or something. There was an uncomfortable pause during which Vicki became aware that she was not expected to partake in the conspiracy circle. Another blow to her esteem.

"We still have a lot to hammer out," Batman murmured, wandering back toward the window. "You still have those daffodils," he mentioned, noting the two baskets in the corner that Vicki had not yet disposed of. Vicki remembered with a jolt that he'd been in her apartment once before.

"I was being stalked," she groaned, hopping off of the counter. "If I never see another daffodil again, I should be a very happy woman."

When she turned back, he was gone, the blinds clanking against the window pane.

The next day, Vicki was out on assignment, photographing the first official gathering of "Citizens for Batman." Julian didn't tell her about the story he actually got that day. His headline read "Haitian immigrant found mutilated"…


	7. Nothing Worse Than Making Love

A/N: Anyone out there? Hello-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o…………

Frank Miller and I have a complicated relationship. I think he's a pretty good storyteller and I love his _noir_-esque stuff. But really: Vicki Vale speaking out of her butt? Catwoman, the prostitute/dominatrix? Gawd…

References: _Buffy, Rent, Thank You For Smoking, _and_ Firefly_.

"Bonjour, ma chére! Comment tu aimes Paris?" roughly translates to: "Hello, dear! How do you like Paris?"

**

* * *

**

**CHAPTER SEVEN: Nothing Worse Than Making Love**

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"One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that."

Norman Mailer

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"_She's got the single-mindedness of Hitler, coupled with the generosity of Stalin and the shoe taste of Imelda Marcos."_

_Ace DiBella_

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* * *

"When is Harley going to end the 'les-faux' phase?"

"I vote never," Julian said, his hand shooting up into the air with loads of enthusiasm.

"I vote neither," Peg confessed, unaware of how much frustration she was projecting. "Switching to girls didn't aid her batting average. I think I spend more time consoling her now than when she was dating guys."

"You'd think it'd help that all the equipment's the same," Vicki laughed.

"It doesn't, trust me," her rival photographer, Ace DiBella, interjected. "I've been dating men for three-fourths of my life and it's not any easier than for breeders. We just don't whine as much."

"Y'know, I didn't figure you for a fairy," Peg mused, licking her spoon like it was a lollipop and trying to imagine that her yogurt was fudge.

"Was it the lack of high heels," Ace deadpanned, "or that I haven't managed to bend Knox over my desk and make him into the next Oscar Wilde?"

Vicki started laughing so hard that she snorted her soda all over her sandwich and into her hair. At that moment, as she groped for a napkin from Peg, she decided that she liked Ace. The veteran photog had invited their little group into his slightly larger-than-average cubicle for lunch completely out of the blue.

Julian, a very recent addition thanks to his moral support, had kept the conversation going all about himself until the mention of Halloween night had come up. Julian had gone to a party, Vicki had taken two tykes trick-or-treating, Ace had stayed in with his boyfriend and watched '_The Omen'_, and Peg had canceled all of her plans in order to have a 'binge-fest' with Harleen Quinzel, who'd been dumped by her latest lover, performance artist Bianca Steeplechase.

"Most pretentious gay man ever," Julian noted, taking the barb with surprisingly tempered offense. He was actually channeling his frustration into stabbing at his sesame chicken with his chopsticks. "Trying to send a message there?"

"Yet another service that we gay henchmen provide," Ace shrugged. He swung in his swivel chair to Vicki, who was still diligently mopping up her soda. "Any news on the 'witch hunt' front?"

"GCN tried to do a segment, but Trish let me do some short, generic first amendment stuff," Vicki said fondly. "And Dent's got better things to do: new tip line, impending corruption prosecutions, and a grassroots campaign to take care of. I have it on very good authority that Garcetti won't go through with the charges, anyway, because Worthington is going to come out in support of Batman."

"Were I a jealous man, I'd ask you how you snagged Batman in the first place," Ace stated slyly. He was half joking, half serious. Ace DiBella didn't wear his resentment of her like granny panties he was embarrassed of and had to hide under an easygoing façade, unlike Vaughan or Rosique, who always visibly bristled when she walked into a room. Vicki couldn't kid herself; she knew that most of the _Times_ staff were still flummoxed by how she'd managed to get Batman to pose for her.

Ace was, for all intents and purposes, a nice guy and his offer of friendship seemed genuine, with a hint of curiosity mixed in. Vicki, of all people, couldn't fault him for being curious.

Brushing her hair back and yanking it into a messy ponytail, Vicki gave Ace a secretive smirk.

"Guess it's a good thing you're not," she purred. Ace's response: a simple nod and a grin. Yes, Vicki liked him very much.

"Well," Julian started, "I can't see how Dent thinks he even stands a chance against-"

"HOLY SHIT!"

Peg flung her arm out toward the cubicle entrance. Outside the cubicle, Peg glanced the _Times_ editor and silver fox Martha Barnes striding past, pointing at random spots, narrating for an unfamiliar woman. Several editors were hurrying behind them, such as news editor Doug Wilson and economics editor Sidney Stonem, trying to keep up.

"Is that…?" Peg and Vicki leapt out of their seats and elbowed past Julian to get a good look. Carefully sticking their heads out, attempting subtlety, they studied the woman at the center of the odd party. She was statuesque, with sleek, black hair pinned up on the back of her head, wearing a severe pantsuit that looked tailored to fit every crevice of her body, and black leather, stiletto Jimmy Choos.

"How does she wear those?" Vicki wondered aloud with vague awe.

"I think she's just propelled off the ground by pure magic," Peg answered incredulously. Ace stuck out his head out of the cubicle just above them to get a good look.

"Ladies, our new Fuehrer, Ms. Kyle," he muttered darkly. The lady was indeed Margaret Kyle, the incoming editor of _The_ _Gotham Times_.

"I think they call 'em 'editors' these days," Vicki said, still scrutinizing the woman's appearance.

"You're missing the point," Ace chastised. "I worked with this guy who went to school with a guy who worked at _The_ _Metropolis Journal_ when she ascended to power. She rules with an iron fist. She's got the single-mindedness of Hitler coupled with the generosity of Stalin and the shoe taste of Imelda Marcos."

"Shouldn't you be super-interested in designer shoes?" Peg asked offhandedly.

"Oh _ye-e-e-ah_. I am the gay man, goo goo g'joob."

"I heard the same thing," Julian added, finally joining their absurd line of heads below Vicki. "About Kyle and her _Journal_ tenure, that is. People started getting fired over grammatical errors."

"Next thing you'll tell us that she sponsors a Two-Minute hate," Vicki giggled, "after which, immaculately dressed in Vera Wang and Manolo Blahniks, she preaches about how the proletariat must rise up and defeat the bourgeois Jews."

"I sure hope not," uttered a suave voice behind them. "Where would that leave me?"

All four journalists turned back to see the debonair figure of Bruce Wayne standing behind them, holding a large bouquet of purple flowers just far enough away from himself that they didn't touch his designer suit.

Vicki _hated_ seeing him out of costume. At least when he had the cowl on she could pretend he wasn't devastatingly handsome, and his raspy parody of a Bat-voice didn't yank out her knee caps so that she was legitimately 'weak at the knees'. He also didn't look so damned symmetrical in _that_ suit.

Vicki could dimly feel Peg pulling her out of her stupor with a sharp jab of the elbow. Peg put up her hands to corral the two men behind her; Ace was flustered but eager, while Julian was starting to look irritated.

"Bruce Wayne, Mr. Bruce, I mean, Mr. Wayne," Ace stammered, standing up just a little straighter.

_Well, at least Ace suffers the same debilitating sickness that I do…_

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Bruce answered smoothly, sparing a coy smile for Ace before turning his focus squarely on Vicki. He held out the flowers for her. "They told me Vicki was in here." The bouquet was half Vicki's size. She clutched them over her shirt to hide the soda stains, smiling weakly at Bruce whilst trying to look away. The buzz of the newsroom had dimmed and that meant that they'd been spotted; she didn't have the courage to see who was staring. She concentrated on the fragrant purple flowers, devising a way to get them out of sight.

"They're beautiful-"

"I was going to get you roses," Bruce drawled, leaning in closer, "but the most expensive thing they had was orchids, so I had Alfred get those instead."

"Really, Mr. Wayne, they're lovely," Vicki spluttered, "but, um… may I ask, uh, why…?" She shoved the bouquet into Peg's hands. Bruce smirked and put a hand against the cubicle wall, so that Vicki was pressed between it and Bruce.

Vicki's heart rate was pounding in her ribcage and she couldn't quite place the feelings that were ricocheting inside of her.

Disconcertion, for certain. Embarrassment, because the new Fuehrer, goddamnit, _editor_ was probably watching this spectacle along with an entire newsroom that didn't have a great opinion of her in the first place; resentment, because Bruce looked like he enjoyed making her a wishy-washy imbecile; and confusion—_why is he here? My window wasn't good enough?!_; and something else… no, that was probably just more resentment.

"I heard about your legal troubles," he said, "and, having suffered some of my own after my mansion burned down, I came to offer my sympathies." He grinned, flashing his pearly whites. One might think hanging out with Bhutanese ninjas and Gotham mobsters would have detracted somewhat from his sculpted-by-the-gods appearance, but no. His crooked grin struck lust into Vicki's heart. "I was hoping I could console you over dinner at my new penthouse."

Then the motherfucker did the worst thing ever and _leaned in closer to whisper_. Vicki's breath caught on her throat as his hot breath flew over the sensitive skin of her ear. He smelled like… well, for lack of a better adjective, he smelled like _man_. "Sorry for the spectacle, but we really do need to talk."

Bruce's dire tone snatched Vicki off of Cloud Nine and sent her straight back to Earth.

"That sounds great," she sighed as he leaned back.

"Sounds classy," Julian cut in, finally making it past Peg to hover over Bruce and Vicki. "Why don't you just bash her on the head and drag her back to your cave?"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Bruce sneered. Both men ignored their open-mouthed, saucer-eyed audience.

"What? Ashamed of slumming it? Can't take her out on the town like you do your Ukrainian supermodels?" Julian challenged, stepping closer so that Vicki was practically squashed between the men. Although Julian was a few inches shorter than Bruce, both of them towered over Vicki like cowboys standing off against each other in a saloon brawl. Bruce was the first to back down. He stepped away and buttoned his suit up.

"Vicki, you like French food?" he asked. Unable to make her voice box work, Vicki nodded numbly. "Good; 'La Bergerie' will be acquiring a new owner soon. I'll have Alfred phone you the details." He leaned in, planted a soft peck on her cheek, and whisked out.

Silence abounded until…

"Hm… His suit's kinda nineties," Ace murmured, cocking his head to one side as they watched Bruce Wayne stroll out.

"What was that?" Vicki gasped, choking on her emotions.

"Honey, Bruce fucking Wayne just asked you to dinner!" Peg exclaimed, giving a little jump and clutching Vicki's flowers as if they were her own.

"No," Vicki burst out, whirling around to face Julian. "What was that display of testosterone poisoning?" She was so angry at him she could feel her very molecules throwing tantrums.

"I'm sorry if you're just too flattered by his deigning to ask you to dinner that you can't see straight!" Julian scoffed.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" she exclaimed, holding her head in her hands. "You had to go on about cavemen and Ukrainian models because I'm flattered that Bruce Wayne asked me out?"

"Oh gosh, what an honor!" Julian declared sarcastically.

"Y'know, my days of not taking your seriously are certainly coming to a middle-"

"Excuse me," Barnes ahem'd, appearing beside them with the new editor in tow. "Is something wrong?"

"No!" Vicki and Julian insisted simultaneously. They both started staring at their feet, cowed by the glacial stare Margaret Kyle was giving them.

"Ms. Kyle, this is Vicki Vale," Barnes glossed, putting an arm around Vicki's shoulders and ignoring everyone else. Vicki felt a slight pressure; Barnes was urging her forward. "Our photographer on the Batman and Falcone photos."

"I've heard a lot about you, Miss Vale," Kyle said, extending a hand. Her nails were perfectly buffed and polished with the same shade of plum she wore on her lips. As Vicki shook her hand, she noticed that her grip was as solid as steel and her skin just as icy as her demeanor. "Only 23 and up for the Pulitzer; that's quite an accomplishment."

"It's a long shot," Vicki gulped, folding her hands behind her back so that Kyle couldn't see her nervous fidgeting.

"Still, I'm expecting great things from you." Vicki couldn't tell if it was a demand disguised as flattery or a straight-out order. She tensed when a shrill ringtone burst out. Nonplussed, Kyle pulled a minute cell phone from her breast pocket. Her lips curled to an almost-smile and she drifted away from the group. "My sister, Selina. If you'll excuse me…" She turned away and snapped her phone open. "Bonjour, ma chére! Comment tu aimes Paris?"

**

* * *

**

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* * *

"And then he said he's going to buy it! What the fuck was that?"

"It sounds like he's taking you on a date. I suppose this means I should call the owner of 'La Bergerie'…"

"Y'know, tell him that he doesn't need to take me on a date or buy me a whole restaurant to talk to me."

"It's only chivalrous for him to do so."

"He embarrassed me in front of the new Fuerhrer! Shit, I mean editor! Motherfucker, why do I keep saying that?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you put sailors to shame with your speech habits?"

"Yes, several times. I've also been told that my drinking habits put Irish dockworkers to shame. Listen, was there something Bruce needs to tell me that absolutely had to be said face-to-face, out of costume, in public surrounded by people and ambiance?"

"He just wants to get to know you a little better. You did crush his hopes of keeping a secret identity."

"It's still a secret! I'm not telling! I was ordered by the courts to tell and I didn't."

"But it's the principle of the thing."

"Please stop being facetious, Alfred…"

"I do apologize Miss Vale."

"When does he want to do this?"

"I was thinking Sunday evening, somewhere around five o'clock?"

"So early?"

"The criminal elements of Gotham like to get a start on their mischief somewhere around eleven o'clock. Mr. Wayne wouldn't want to abandon you too early."

"I don't even have anything to wear."

"Shall we say a sheer, indigo, chiffon evening dress, square cut?"

"…"

"Lucky guess. I'll send it over immediately. Good day, Miss Vale."

"Bye…"

Click.

_Mama, just killed a man/Put a gun against his head/Pulled my trigger, now he's dead-_

"Yes, Master Bruce?"

"Alfred, I'm going to need you to-"

"Call the owner and put an offer on 'La Bergerie'?"

"…"

"Miss Vale called, very disturbed about you how embarrassed her in front of her new Fuehrer."

"Fuehrer?"

"I believe it is a journalistic term. Lucius faxed over her background check today. Beware, some of it is disturbing."

"Disturbing how?"

"She used to volunteer at Planned Parenthood. When she was nine she broke her collarbone. Oh, and most telling of all, she recently took a self-defense course at the YMCA."

"Alfred, I know you like her, but I need-"

"If you're worried about her loyalty, remember that she fought that subpoena tooth and nail. It was dropped yesterday. And if she miraculously turns around and decides she wants more from you, we've got leverage. Her mother is in your employment as legal counsel."

"Questionable associates?"

"Several mentions of known mobsters, but in caption only. She photographed Carmine Falcone for a piece."

"I remember that one."

"I meant in a restaurant, with Porterhouse steaks. It was a human-interest piece."

"I guess she is only 24. Can't have amassed _that_ many contacts."

"I didn't say that. There is one contact you may want to bring up. When she attended Gotham State, she double-majored in photojournalism and psychology, as well as minored in criminal justice. Incidentally, she was quite close to the head of the psychology department, Dr. Nestor Rudge."

"The co-founder of Arkham Asylum?"

"Her contact with him seems to have ceased after she graduated. The only other note of interest is that her father is in the hospital with prostate cancer and the oncological surgeon operating on him next week is your old friend Thomas Elliot."

"Good for him. Thomas graduated top of his class, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did. He completed his residency at Gotham General and seems to be angling for Chief of Surgery, a post your father held for some time."

"Is there anything else I should know before I meet with her?"

"That she is quite taken with you."

"… I _knew_ that."

"Then may I suggest you not breed offense by treating her as a hostile or a child? Perhaps instead of insulting her dignity, you should use her affection to your advantage."

"I do _not_ need a girlfriend. I have enough on my plate as it is."

"Well, she'd certainly be an upgrade over Danya or Tatiana. She can string multiple syllables together quite well. She has the drinking tolerance of an Irish dockworker. She'll understand if you've got to skip dinner for a late night at the office."

"And I assume her number one feature is that she has your stamp of approval."

"You don't know this about me, Master Wayne, but I was quite the stud in my prime. I assure you, I can pick 'em."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"You're here on a date?"

"Yes. Why is that such a shock to everyone?"

"It's not a shock. I just didn't figure he'd take you out in public."

Constance B. Mooreston shot Vicki her sickliest, sweetest, wide-mouthed smile. Her date with up-and-coming entrepreneur Preston Bradley had shot three birds with one stone; she'd already overheard some choice gossip on Mildred Peerston's daughter going back to rehab somewhere in Utah, Preston had presented her with a none-too-shabby rock for her finger, and she'd finally gotten a chance to put Vicki Vale in her place.

Although it had occurred on her day off and she'd missed the whole spectacle, Constance had managed to glean most of the details about Vicki's impending date with the most eligible bachelor in Gotham City, including his acquirement of the Five-Star French restaurant, 'La Bergerie' all for Vicki. Since luring people into letting their secrets slip was vital to Constance's job, manipulating Vicki's wounded little boyfriend Knox into spilling on the more sordid aspects of the affair hadn't been difficult; Wayne had apparently been wooing Vicki behind closed doors for some time. Constance then had Preston switch their reservation, weaseled the timing out of Vicki's chatty little sub-editor friend and happened to slip by the table in the corner where Vicki sat alone, studying her cell phone with an aura of distinct aggravation.

Dressed immaculately in a metallic gold, single-shoulder gown, wide, chocolate curls cascading all over and her hand resting so that the candlelight cast just the perfect glint off her new ring, Constance put Vicki to shame, and she relished it. She made sure to stay friendly, as Vicki looked to be turning into one of her most valuable sources. When Wayne dumped the little tramp, her column might finally have enough verve to eclipse the Batman stories that were perennially all over the _Times_.

"Neither did I," Vicki murmured in response, checking her phone again. 5:30. Alfred had neither called nor texted to excuse Bruce. She was caught between affection for the butler and umbrage for the vigilante.

"Darling, the time," Preston urged, tapping his Rolex. "Curtain rises at seven o'clock."

"I know," Constance said, "but I couldn't stand leaving Vicki here all alone."

"Really, that would be fine," Vicki said under her breath, downing a gulp of her Médoc red wine. She was almost out, yet she was sorely tempted to break her no-second-drink rule for this special occasion.

"No need to worry," Bruce assured, popping up as if out of thin air, "she won't be." He put a hand comfortingly on Vicki's shoulder and pecked her on the cheek before taking his seat on the other side of the table. Vicki was baffled by his habit of faking intimacy with a kiss on the cheek, but she didn't turn away.

"Mr. Wayne, it's nice to finally meet you," Constance trilled, extending her hand where no introductions had been requested. "I'm Constance B. Mooreston; I work with Vicki at the _Times_."

Bruce ignored her hand.

"Constance, Constance…" he said, as though mulling her name over in his head. "Ah, I've got it," he exclaimed, grinning and leaning back in his chair to size her up. "You wrote that article about how I party so much that I'll never measure up to my father, am I right?"

Vicki giggled, covered it up with a cough, and then finally took another gulp of her Médoc to excuse herself from speaking. Constance's mouth hung agape, her face flashing a few shades of red, trying to come up with a nifty comeback about his birthday antics, but none stuck with her. Preston just looked embarrassed, seeming very interested in the floor. Vicki had to hand it to him though; he was much quicker on the uptake than Constance's last boy toy.

"Enjoy your meal," Bruce urged, gesturing to Preston to move himself and Constance along. "Charming woman," he remarked, opening the menu to scan. Vicki didn't reply. Their waiter came by, she gulped down the last of her wine and when Bruce ordered appetizers, she just waved her wine glass at the waiter. "Well, I suppose its good you've got the, what's the phrase, 'tolerance of an Irish dockworker'," Bruce said, sipping at his iced tea. An image of Alfred popped up into Vicki's mind with the word 'TRAITOR' graffitied across it in red paint. Then again, he was Bruce's accomplice, she couldn't really blame him.

Vicki decided that not only did she like Bruce better in costume, she also liked him better when she was buzzed.

"I've heard the _boeuf bourguignon_ is excellent," Bruce observed, making another pointed stab at conversation.

Vicki simply stared back at him with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out which grievance she wanted to address first. She'd spent all day bracing herself for this encounter, steeling herself against his weak-at-the-knees charm, and it was time for her fleeting courage to actually work.

"Please," she requested, "don't ever give me flowers again."

"Are you more of a 'chocolates' girl?"

"You came here to discuss something," Vicki reminded him. "What is it?"

Bruce sighed to himself, as though miffed that Vicki wasn't going along with his courteous act. They locked stares for a while, Vicki breaking only to sip at her wine.

"You're a very weird character, Mr. Wayne," she commented after a bit. "I look at you, knowing full well that you leap off rooftops in your spare time, and I think I know exactly what I'm seeing. Then I find out you're something else entirely."

"Goodbye, Dr. Jekyll, hello, Mr. Hyde," Bruce murmured, leaning forward, one eyebrow going up. "Is that what you think of me?"

"I don't think you limit yourself to just two personas," Vicki stated, crossing her legs beneath the table. She cringed far back into her seat when she felt her leg brush against Bruce's knee.

"Are you trying to psychoanalyze me, Miss Vale?"

"I'm not up to the task."

"Dr. Crane, perhaps, or, uh, your friend, Dr. Rudge?" he suggested, his tone casual. Vicki inhaled sharply.

"Is that what you're worried about?" she asked, seething inside at the mention of her former psychology professor and mentor. Bruce must've done some serious digging on her to uncover her connection to him. The only concrete connection she had with Rudge, the only thing on public record, was her visit to Arkham the previous summer.

"Should I be?" Bruce shot back, his easy façade beginning to fade. His face became harder and the playboy arrogance slipped off. "Rudge was one of the driving influences behind transforming Arkham from a prison and into a mental institution-"

"Along with psychiatric prodigy and current psycho-on-the-lam, Jonathan Crane," Vicki completed, downing another gulp of her wine to keep herself calm.

She was stuck. Either she could excuse herself right then and quit this game of intrigue or she could play along, give Bruce whatever information to satiate his worry, and hope that it would pay off in the future. Bruce still had not come through on Alfred's promise of leads and Vicki had been waiting patiently for the sake of her career, yet every second spent with Bruce made her revert back to a childish state of awe and self-doubt.

"Dr. Rudge and I aren't on speaking terms right now," Vicki replied stiffly after a moment.

"Why?" Bruce pressed.

"He's currently under investigation for money-laundering and malpractice."

"So you recently cut off contact?"

"No." Bruce waited for an explanation; Vicki sipped at her wine, silently willing him to accept the answer.

"Then was it when you turned down his employment offer?"

"Yes."

"Care to elaborate?"

"No."

Vicki folded her arms over her chest, tapping her arm in a fidgety manner. Bruce gave up questioning and stared at her, absentmindedly stroking his iced tea and playing with the condensation as he struggled with his motives.

"I can't help thinking that I've done something to make you angry," he sighed in frustration. Vicki hmm-ed appropriately in response, taken aback by his change in subject. "And that bothers me more than I'd like," he admitted quietly. A brief, pregnant silence ensued.

"I'm not angry," Vicki informed him, rolling her eyes.

"Then you are...?" Bruce waved his hand, gesturing for a response. Vicki groped for one, suddenly at a loss for everything she'd planned to be mad at Bruce for.

"Suffering from some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," she finally muttered, downing the last of her savory wine. When she finished, she let her hand fall haphazardly across the table.

"Due to what?" Bruce asked.

"I worshipped Dr. Rudge," she divulged, feeling her cheeks light up briefly from shame, unable to keep her gaze on Bruce's face. "I fed on his delusions of grandeur. He talked about saving Gotham from itself, like a scientific hippy revolution where everything could be fixed by intense psychotherapy and love." She laughed bitterly as she remembered sitting in Rudge's office, discussing his career, his methods, his theories… "But for my thesis, I spent some time in Arkham, studying three inmates under Crane's watch. It is, or, I suppose, was," Vicki corrected herself, remembering Bruce's recent foray into the asylum, "the most baffling combination of putrid decay and sterility I've ever encountered; an antiquated house of madness." Vicki shrugged. "I confronted Rudge about it, turned down the job, and haven't spoken to him since."

"Was the relationship romantic?" Bruce implored.

"You don't have a right to ask that," Vicki snapped, her back arching straighter at the offense, hurling herself back into anger mode. "As for the question of my 'loyalty'-"

"I didn't mean to-"

"I realize that you have an almost anal compulsion to control your little enterprise and I respect that," she fumed. "And I know that on paper, I'm not a particularly great candidate for your particular brand of espionage; but I've lived in Gotham my entire life, I know it like the lines in my palm." Vicki held up her hand for emphasis. "I put up with psychopaths and gangsters and thugs on a daily basis."

Bruce slipped his hand into hers. His calloused fingers delicately brushed over her own dry, poorly-tended-to digits. When she gently tugged away, he held tighter and they locked gazes.

"I never meant to accuse you of anything. But you can understand my..."

"Fear?"

"Hesitance."

"Reluctance?"

"Curiosity…"

Beneath the table, Vicki felt Bruce's leg slip deftly next to her own.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

_Three Months Later_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

…**Violence erupts outside Gambol hotspot… **

… **Mob negotiations break down again… **

… **Officers Notaro, Breitup, Del Arrazio, Cohen, Davies, and Chandler were indicted by Dent…**

… **Suicides at a record low for Valentine's Day…**

… **The culprits, wearing clown masks, got away with…**

… **Crime victim sues Batman for loss of car…**

… **Lieutenant James Gordon creates Major Crimes Unit, rumored to be working with Batman…**

… **Dr. Crane still on the loose, latest victim dead is…**

… **Polls for March primary predict Garcetti lead…**

_Good evening, this is Mike Engel with Gotham Cable News. First, some breaking news, Bruce Wayne seems to have made it official with _Gotham Times_ photographer Vicki Vale. Last night, they were spotted out on the town again, visiting some of hottest spots. The pair has been linked since Wayne first came back to Gotham after a seven-year absence and the infamous birthday party where Wayne became a suspect in burning down his own house. Although neither has confirmed the relationship, inside sources say that Wayne might just be ready to tame his party ways and settle down with Vale. Coming up in the hour, we have accounts from several eyewitnesses who say that Wayne got down on one knee and gave Vale a sizable 24-karat…"_

The TV clicked off.

"So, where's my 24-karat thingy?" Vicki demanded, shoveling down another bite of veal, keeping it just out of Alfred's reach.

"You'll get it when you actually eat a meal at the table," Alfred admonished as he toweled off a fork. Bruce had been called to duty much earlier in the day, forcing him to forgo his Valentine's Day dinner with Vicki, who was now perched on the kitchen counter of Bruce's penthouse, finishing Bruce's share of the meat as Alfred washed the dishes.

Alfred snatched at the plate again; she snatched it back away, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I've met Bengal tigers less ravenous than you," he muttered darkly.

"Stuffy, stuffy, stuffy, I'm so British, give me a scone," Vicki taunted.

"Stuffy?" Alfred exclaimed. "I'll have you know-"

Before he could tell her exactly what she need to know about his British-ness, they heard a loud clanging in the hallway and whipped their heads around to see Bruce braced against the wall in a black t-shirt and sweats. Some coffee tins had skittered to the floor and were still spinning around him. Bruce grimaced sheepishly.

"Uh..."

"Stealthy," Vicki said caustically, setting her plate in the sink and dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the inside of her sleeve as Bruce replaced the scattered items.

"I think they were mopping in the halls." Bruce sighed. He leaned against the counter and kissed Vicki on the cheek for a full five seconds. "I'm..."

"Late," Vicki admonished with mock anger, unable to keep a grin off her mouth. Her hand drifted down and her fingers entwined with Bruce's, letting her other hand drift up his arm, slipping on the sheen of sweat he had acquired.

"Rough day at the office, sir?" Alfred asked, folding his dish towels.

"Did someone beat you with a lead pipe?" Vicki interjected, her fingers crawling up Bruce's sleeve to reveal a purple mass blooming over his shoulder. Bruce grumbled, the vibrations humming against Vicki's arm. He avoided a reply, kissed her again on the cheek, and gestured toward the door at Alfred.

"Alfred, please…"

A twinkle in the butler's eyes arose and he abandoned his dishes, sparkling and tentatively stacked next to the sink, and left the room quickly. As soon as his coattails had rounded the corner, Vicki threaded her arms around Bruce's neck and pulled him in for a real kiss.

Vicki didn't know whether or not to call her relationship with Bruce an 'office romance'; her photos were splayed across the _Times_ front page on a weekly basis precisely because Bruce let her in on the action. In the interest of her protection, he usually just tipped her off on the timing of Gordon's arrests, though on just one occasion, he had felt secure enough to simply phone her as he was swinging away from a crime scene. It had only been a minor thug tied to a lamppost. Vicki attempted to equalize the arrangement by supplementing Gordon's information role with headlines or threads she badgered out of Peg.

For whatever reason, Bruce had decided to play up their date to Vicki's colleagues a.k.a. the entire press. Vicki was still confused as to his motivation for following through with the intimacy in private; Bruce was a mysterious, hesitant lover, and brooded a great deal, but she enjoyed the silence, Bruce's presence enough to entertain her for the few hours they did manage to spend alone.

The only true hesitancy Vicki felt was the fleeting thought that her relationship with Bruce amounted to that of a concubine; a line of thinking could have easily turned poisonous if Vicki didn't enjoy their arrangement so much. Too much, almost. She remembered this feeling from the last time she'd been in love, at the tender age of 13, with Mr. Darcy, only Bruce was flesh and blood—oh, what fine flesh!

The vibrations hummed again, tickling Vicki's lips as Bruce sighed into their kiss. One of his hands meandered around her waist, pulling her closer and allowing her knees to bump gently against his waist. She let her legs drift apart and pulled him in closer, just as he pulled away and held a hand toward the door.

"Flowers for milady," Alfred said, having reappeared at the doorway with her gift. In his hand, he held a simple, glass vase containing at least twenty heart-shaped balloons. Vicki started laughing uncontrollably and leaned back against the cupboards.

"While I appreciate your efforts," she chortled, as Alfred handed them to her, "I think they call them balloons."

"Stick 'em in water," Bruce instructed her as he batted the balloons away from his face. "See what happens."

"I'll leave you two to your, uh, _watering_," Alfred said, ducking back out of the room with an impish, all-knowing and, on the whole, pervy grin.

"Thank you," Vicki called to his retreating figure. She yanked down one of the balloons and pretended to smell it. "Mmm, like fresh roses."

"You said you didn't want flowers," Bruce shrugged.

"I'm just amazed that you remembered."

He smiled at her and she pulled him back in for another kiss.

This time, he responded with something resembling fervor.

Usually, Bruce's reserve when they touched bordered on stoicism. Sure, she'd blown him once at dinner out of sheer boredom, but… he shied away from _this_.

Now, she felt him surge between her legs and hitch up her skirt to caress her thighs. She hooked her legs tightly around him, her hands shrugging out of his embrace to dive beneath his shirt, skimming his stomach muscles and tickling his skin with the tips of her nails. Vicki gasped when she felt him jerk her closer and deepen the kiss. She wrapped her arms around him, splayed her hands over his back and tracing several trails of scar tissue.

Somehow—Vicki really couldn't tell—they ended up on the floor, writhing on the pristine, white tiles.

Bruce was somewhere in between spasm and control. Vicki swiveled her hips slowly against him, eventually feeling his erection press against her abdomen. He rose back on his knees and slipped his hand beneath her skirt, maneuvering her black thong up and over her complicated, strappy sandals. He went back to kiss her; she tugged at his shirt. She noticed his hands trembling as he yanked it over his head in a flash and shifted himself between her legs.

He thrust tentatively, at first. They stopped kissing, but their lips stayed pressed together. Vicki struggled to breathe as she felt Bruce's weight bearing down on her, but she hid her discomfort, moving to trail kisses over his neck. As he gained speed, it was as though he had drifted off to another place entirely. His eyes were squeezed shut.

She couldn't tell how much time passed; it could've been a minute or an hour. She gasped when Bruce shook with the force of his climax and seemed to collapse on top of her. He rolled off without ceremony and stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily; from exertion or stress, Vicki couldn't decide.

_Wait… _wait_… was that… how it was supposed to go?_ Vicki suddenly sat up straight, whipping her head around to make sure they were alone. A sudden bout of paranoia had come over her.

Everything was bare and silent, except for Bruce's breathing.

"Are you all right?" Bruce sat up next to her and placed his enormous hand at the small of her back. "I haven't… done this, in a while…" He had to force the words out. Vicki couldn't look at him. "Did I hurt you?"

Vicki's eyes widened and she turned to him. Bruce's hair was mussed and had slipped into his eyes. He looked… dismayed.

"No!" Vicki insisted, "of course not." She winced when she moved her ribs. They might have cracked. "I'm just… wow…"

"Yeah…" Bruce looked away, staring into space and revving into his 'languish-and-brood' mode.

Vicki slipped her thong back on and tugged down her little black dress.

* * *

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

Although Bruce had insisted on calling a cab for her, when she went outside, Vicki tossed the cab fare at the driver and told him to take off. She wandered automatically to the new-and-improved monorail system. The shaking and jerking might have nauseated a weaker traveler, but it comforted Vicki as she rode back to Reatton. She wrapped her arms around herself as she glanced around at the only three other passengers in the car; a security guard, a rat-faced woman knitting a tea cozy, and a lanky man, swaddled deep in a hoodie, watching her.

Vicki's head bumped off of the window and she stared out at the streets below, which had looked neither so peaceful nor lonely before.


	8. My Arrogant Presumption

A/N: If the first section seems a little random, it's not. Hannah's admirer will play an important part later in the overall story.

I went back and edited some details. Just a couple of names and Vicki's father's illness.

Warnings: Coarse language.

References: Buffy, Gilmore Girls, and JFK.

**

* * *

**

**CHAPTER EIGHT: My (Arrogant) Presumption**

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions."

Friedrich Nietzsche

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"_I'd recommend a healthy dose of shutting your trap and taking the pain. Be there as her friend if you really care about her. Even if it kills you."_

_Antonello 'Ace' DiBella_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

"Aphrodisia!"

_Pound, pound, pound…_

"APHR-O-O-ODISI-I-IA-A-A!"

As Vicki trudged upstairs, her strappy, 4-inch sandals finally making her feet throb with exhaustion and pain, she found a tall, skinny black man pounding on Hannah's door. His head was shaved and he had on raggedy cargo pants and a black muscle shirt, displaying a lean, malnourished physique. He had a swishing bottle of vodka in his hand.

"Aphrodisia, let me in!" he pleaded, bellowing into the door. He pounded with his free hand several more times before it opened, revealing short but angry Stuart Wells, Hannah's fiancée.

"I don't know who you're talking about," Stuart bellowed, "'cause you got the wrong door!"

As far as Stuart knew, Hannah the Happy Hooker was just a waitress; he had no idea that 'Aphrodisia' was the alias she went by when she conducted her prostitution affairs. In the months that Hannah had been dating Stuart, she'd dropped her clients one by one until she was finally was 'just a waitress.' Vicki only knew this because Hannah had threatened her on pain of really long fingernails not to tell Stuart or make trashy whore jokes when around him.

Vicki sorted through her purse for her keys, unable to look away from the spectacle. It would be cruel irony if Stuart found out about Hannah's prostitution career on Valentine's Day.

"Please!" The drunkard ignored Stuart, leaning into him to yell farther into the apartment. "My dick gets hard just thinking about-" Stuart launched the guy across the hall with a surprisingly forceful push, "-you."

"I'm so sorry…" Vicki stepped in between Stuart and the drunkard. She held a hand up to steady the drunkard, who was wobbling as he recovered from being thrown into the wall. He was studying his feet, trying to work out which one went where for the purposes of walking. "He got the numbers on the door mixed up," Vicki lied, "Y'know, the six falls down and then it's a nine and then people have to pick one door to go to and then they don't just count, which you'd think would be super simple, but-"

"You're not Aph-" The drunkard attempted to contradict her, but Vicki smashed her hand over his mouth and stamped on his foot simultaneously.

"_Keep him away!_" Stuart sputtered, his face turning a blotchy red that resembled a sunburn. Before he slammed the door in her face, Vicki glanced into the apartment to see Hannah, panicked, clutching a heart-shaped box of chocolates and mouthing '_THANK YOU!'_

Once the door was safely bolted, Vicki took her hand off of the drunken guy's mouth and wiped his spittle on the side of her slinky, black Valentine's Day dress.

_Leaving this guy in the hallway won't be good…_

"No, I need to…" The drunkard began to speak again, lurching toward Hannah's door. Vicki yanked the vodka out of his hand, threw one of his arms over her shoulder and lugged him into her own apartment. Without turning on the lights, she managed to heave him onto her kitchen floor, where he promptly retched up his last three drinks.

"Gawd, Hannah, you owe me _so_ much…" Vicki muttered, side-stepping the drunk to access her sink and wetting down some towels.

"Who are you?" the drunk groaned, rolling onto his back.

"Let's just say…" Vicki knelt down and began dabbing at the vomit with the wet towels, bracing herself as the familiar scent of bile rose in her nostrils. "I'm a friend." The drunkard coughed up a couple of times onto his jacket. Vicki set the dirty towels in the sink and began rummaging through her cupboards for her 'hangover cure' ingredients.

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want a friend," the drunkard slurred.

"Didn't say I was _yours_…" Vicki muttered, thinking of Hannah on the day she had gotten engaged. Hannah had been excitedly flitting about Papa's apartment, showing off her engagement ring to anyone who came by. Her happiness had been so infectious that Vicki couldn't even make a joke about how miniscule the diamond was.

Vicki finished the hangover concoction and knelt down beside the drunk again.

"Drink this," she instructed, holding the cup up to his lips and guiding his hand to it.

"What is it?" the drunk muttered, not even hesitant to gulp it down.

"Ancient Irish hangover cure," Vicki said, flicking on the stove lights so she could actually see her way aroundthe kitchen "Well, actually, the Irish just bury you up to the neck in moist river sand, but I didn't have any around. This is just gin and hot sauce."

"I can't, can't feel this…" the drunk whined, setting the concoction down. Vicki pushed it back to his lips and he pawed at her arm, gagging a little. When the cup was drained, Vicki rose and rinsed off her hands. "I need her…" the drunk keened, starting to cough and cry at the same time, spitting up on his collar.

"What's your name?" Vicki asked, leaning against the cupboards and checking the time. Her microwave was flashing **12:07** in green light.

"I don't wanna live without her!" the drunkard cried, ignoring Vicki and curling up into a ball against her oven.

"Well, you smell like axel grease…" Vicki noted, taking in the grease stains on the drunk's pants and jacket, indicating that he was a mechanic of some sort.

"I'll never be able to find someone like Aphrodisia," the drunk continued to whine, knocking his head against Vicki's oven.

"… so I'll just call you, 'Axel'!"

"_Don't wanna be, all by myse_-" Vicki kicked 'Axel' in the shoulder with the heel of her sandal to end his serenade. "Ow," he muttered, not even flinching.

"One," Vicki began, hopping back off the counter to kneel next to Axel, "that is not her name. Two, your little song is going to be met with a heartfelt ass-kicking by her boyfriend. He may look little, but I bet he packs a mad eye-poke."

"He's not good enough for her!" Axel roared at Vicki.

"And you _are_?" she questioned. "A street kid up to his knees in booze and whores is good enough for her?"

Axel didn't make any form of rebuttal; he buried his head back into his knees, rocking back and forth. Swiping the vodka off the counter, Vicki scooted in next to Axel, trying her best to think of something that would comfort him. She couldn't come up with anything. Aside from his fantastic upchuck abilities, nothing about him really struck her as hopeful.

"She looks at him like the sun shines out of his ass," Vicki sighed, speaking of Hannah and Stuart instead of Axel's prospects. "On top of that, she's lucky enough…" Now Vicki took a swig from the Vodka bottle, "to have his love in return. If something like that," —another swig— "something so serendipitous happens…" Vicki started to get off track, images of Bruce swimming in her head. Him in a suit, him in his _other_ suit, during sex, during dinner, during sex, during a party, during sex… She took a much longer gulp of vodka this time.

"Huh?" Axel finally lifted his head. Vicki took in his red-rimmed eyes and drippy nose and remembered what her point was.

"-then you need to let them be," she finished gently. Axel stayed silent; then he lifted his head, looking very confused. "Back off," Vicki commanded.

"But I'm in love with her," Axel blubbered.

"She doesn't love you."

Axel's eyes squeezed shut and he dry-heaved with misery, reaching for the vodka bottle. Vicki yanked it away from him.

"God damn it…" Axel curled back into his fetal position.

"Buck up," Vicki said, lightly punching Axel on the shoulder. "You're young. There are plenty other of hookers out there who'll be glad for a sensitive John like you." She patted Axel on the arm and had another drink from the vodka bottle.

Except for the sound of Axel's dry heaving and her own sips, Vicki's apartment was completely silent. Feeling warmth wash over her body in a pleasant wave of tingling, she closed her eyes and let out a slow exhale. Another image of Bruce popped into her head from earlier that night, in his post-coital brooding.

"Can I ask you something?" Vicki asked Axel, her eyes snapping open. Axel didn't indicate he'd heard her; she punched him hard in the arm and he jerked his head towards her, looking confused. "You're a guy and all…" Unable to voice her concerns without more alcohol, Vicki took another swig of the bottle before completing her question. "If a guy's not really paying attention when you're, y'know, _doing stuff_… what does that portend?"

"I'm thinking about Aphrodisia," Axel sighed.

"Please stop saying that," Vicki groaned. "And it could be some_thing_ else, like batteries or his to-do list or Sri Lanka…"

"He's thinking of the girl he really wants," Axel explained, rubbing his temples. He finally looked Vicki in the eye to deliver his superlative relationship wisdom. "You might be screwing a fag."

Vicki's finger flew to her cheek when she realized it was slightly wet from a few tears. She took another drink.

"Well, he's definitely in the closet," she giggled a moment later.

When her microwave clock flashed **3:24**, when Axel was able to walk straight and Vicki had remembered she had to work when the sun came up, she finally kicked Axel out of her apartment.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

To: "Eleanor Bolero"

From: "Victoria Vale"

Subject: February update

_Hey, sorry I haven't written in a while, but nothing especially new has happened. _

_Dad's surgery went well, but he's going to be back in next week to see if they can maybe get more out. Mom's getting out all her grief remedies because she looked up the stats and apparently prostate cancer is the number one killer of some age group of people and then I stopped listening to her. I have no idea how you and my high strung, unyielding mother sprung out of the womb. Maybe that place got sunnier as time went on…_

_One of my photos of a Mob thug named Bruno Groft, the one where he's tied to a lamppost, made one of the highest selling issues since the Bat photos debuted. Not bad, right? Don't mean to brag… except I do. I rock :P_

_Since you've had lots of… lovers… cause, you're pretty, for my aunt… but, uh… things with Bruce are… I just… Okay, here's the thing: I don't think he pays attention when we have sex. I mean, we've done it a couple of times, and usually he's alert and whatnot, but sometimes I just don't… feel it. And it's not the supermodels that the tabloids keep talking about, believe me. As a member of the press, I know what bullshit is. But… got any advice? Since you're sane and all and… and the lovers…_

_So how's Antonio? And Dharma? And the West Coast?_

_Vick_

_PS: You tell anyone about my troubles, I will murder you in your sleep._

_

* * *

_

3 unheard messages. First message:

"Hi, this is Harvey Dent, candidate for District Attorney, reminding you to vote on March 15th. If elected, I promise to-"

_Message deleted. Next message:_

"Victoria, you haven't been answering my calls. Master Wayne expresses his regret that he was unable to attend your last two planned rendez-vous and wishes to-"

_Message deleted. Next message:_

"Vicki, um, I'm" –sniffle- "Babs, and I hope you call me back" –sniffle- "cause I really wanted to talk to you" –sniffle- "so" –sniffle-

_Message deleted. End of messages._

* * *

To: "Victoria Vale"

From: "Eleanor Bolero"

Subject: Re: February update

_It's Auntie Elly to the rescue! Sorry, I just like that it rhymes : )_

_My sister emailed me all those statistics on your dad and such, don't worry, I didn't pay attention to them either. I'm praying for your father's speedy recovery. Henry's an old thug from the Boston 'hood, he's tougher than you mom thinks. As for the womb thing, well… no video proof exists to prove it._

_I'm happy for you in your sudden professional fame. I'm starting a scrapbook and your mother is sending me the clips. Perhaps if you had a more genial relationship with her, you'd know how proud she is. But I digress._

_As for the billionaire… Tough cookie. Yes, I have spent many a wonderful day with a good man or woman, and my heart is always at risk. It is a necessary danger. It's said that the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. Perhaps when I visit and look you in the eye, I'll figure out if you're in love with him. If you think you are, I suggest that you stick it out. Show him that you love him in every way conceivable. But pay attention to your instincts. You have them for a reason. If this feeling persists, then take a break or break clean away. _

_Antonio is finishing business school. He's got real entrepreneurial dreams for my little yoga studio. Dharma misses you very much and thanks you for the Christmas chew toy you sent._

_Elly_

_PS: Dharma already knows…She is the all seeing, all knowing Doggy Swami. Mwahahahahaha!!!!!1!!1!_

_

* * *

_

We all live in a yellow submarine/A yellow submarine/A yellow-

"Hey, Al, terribly sorry I've missed your calls. Such is the glamorous life of a gal in the big city."

"This isn't Alfred."

"_Bruce?_ Um, sorry, it's just… you never call me, unless it's 'Hi, honey, I've bagged a scumbag,' and then you're not usually in the penthouse and… You rang?"

"I was calling to confirm that you received my gift."

"Yeah, the book, _Mansfield Park_. It's standard girl fare."

"You didn't like it?"

"No, no, of course I do! It's full of neat words like 'wilt' and 'henceforth.'"

"But…?"

"But I've already read it, like, 19 times. Jane Austen has mapped out the trajectory of my life. Poor girls, crazy mothers, nefarious dating society, rich men who sweep them off their feet, y'know?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You have doubled my closet volume; I'll live without a heartfelt, out-of-nowhere gift."

"Is there a reason you've been avoiding me?"

"Avoiding you?"

"Not taking my calls unless it's past dark, canceling dates on me-"

"Okay, you so aren't allowed to lecture me on that. Besides, I have the perfect rendez-vous in mind. By perfect, I mean tedious society function I don't want to brave alone if I don't have to."

"The Gotham State University Alumni Banquet; Alfred filled me in on it."

"Why bother calling me when you obviously have a chip implanted in my brain?"

"I've cleared my schedule."

"No money-launderers to be thwarted? No Mob bosses to lasso?"

"Not unless you ask. If you really wanted one with all your pretty little heart, I could probably arrange it."

"Aw, you're the best boyfriend ever…"

* * *

To: "Barbara Gordon"

From: "Victoria Vale"

Subject: GSU Banquet

_PG-_

_Hey, I know we haven't talked in a while, but I figured I'd drop you a line. I got invited to that GSU alumni event on March 5th and I was wondering if you and Jim would be there._

_Also, Babs called me and told me all about the baby-sitter thing, I'm so sorry. I was a psych major, so I can tell you with little to no authority that this whole judo-chop thing is just a phase._

_Vicki_

* * *

To: "Victoria Vale"  
From: "Barbara Gordon"  
Subject: Re: GSU Banquet

_Vicki-_

_Yes, Jim and I will both be in attendance. Since Jim is being recognized, I'm making him go. His first night off in months and he's dreading it. __We've had problems finding a new sitter for the kids ever since Babs fractured the last babysitter's arm, but we managed it. Thank you so much for letting her rant at you. I got a look at our phone bill, she must really bug you. You're her hero though. Well, Batman's her hero, but you're in the top three._

_I think I'll phone you soon to talk about maybe leaving early, having drinks._

_Barbara_

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"And is Sugar Brucie going to buy you a pretty dress?" Ace asked Vicki, referring to the upcoming Gotham State Alumni Banquet. Vicki was going to get an honorable mention, which was unusual for an alumnus of her young age.

"I will kick your ass…" Vicki muttered, shuddering at the mention of her beau, whom Ace had taken to referring as her 'Sugar Brucie'.

"Ooh, I'm sensing hostility," Ace laughed.

Vicki punched Ace in the arm. He pretended to cringe and went back to concentrating on his photos.

They were hanging out in the dark room, waiting for Ace's photos to develop. Earlier that morning, Ace had attended a fundraising event for District Attorney Candidate Roger Garcetti. The polls currently had Garcetti in first place, so he was a shoe-in for the cover of the _Times_ when it ran an issue that summarized the political candidates up for office in the upcoming primary election. Vaughan had been assigned to photograph governor candidates, of course, but the task of photographing the mayoral candidates was still up in the air. Vicki figured it fell between herself and Gregorio Rosique, who still held seniority over her; and yeah, he was good, too.

In exactly three minutes, Francesca Palmeri, the photography editor, would return from her early lunch. Vicki planned to perform a combination of bribery and puppy eyes in order to persuade Palmeri that Vicki deserved the task of covering a town hall debate on Thursday between mayoral candidates Anthony Garcia and Robert Kelso. She'd been hanging out with Ace to raise her spirits, but so far, his pep talk had fallen short and was off-subject.

"Methinks thou art bewitched by a charming prince who doth…" Ace struggled for his next 'Shakespearean' word, "… bamboozle you."

"Thou aimst so near," Vicki sighed, fiddling with the doorknob and checking her watch. She couldn't seem too desperate when Palmeri showed up. "He doth not bamboozle I, yet his attentions are divided amongst interests I know not of."

"You totally lost me there," Ace said carefully, shooting her an inquisitive look. "Did he cheat or…?"

"No!" Vicki insisted. This was the same reaction she'd gotten from Peg when she tried to hint that there was trouble in Wayne-land, namely, Vicki's suspicion of his discontent and Bruce's refusal to crack. "It's not even like that."

"Sorry, but you're not giving me much to go on," Ace said, holding up a photograph to study. "You're always so mysterious about him."

It was precisely because Bruce was so mysterious that Vicki always felt like a traitor when she opened up about her relationship with him. In the few months that they'd been dating, Vicki had bitten her tongue as much as she could without arousing suspicion from her friends; but being unable to discuss her romance in depth, which meant letting on that Bruce had an alter-ego, prevented her from unloading her paranoia, her doubts, and her neuroses. It was beginning to build up inside her, like a volcano that was eventually going to explode in a big gush of irrational, roaring crazy.

"I just… Are you almost done?" Vicki asked, unwilling to pursue the subject of her love life any further.

"Yeah, why?" Ace answered, squinting one last time at a row of five photos he liked and trying to figure out which one to submit for printing. Ms. Kyle, the editor, did not take too kindly to Ace's favored photographic style of irony; she liked photos to be straightforward, topical, almost, so Ace needed to be careful.

"I feel the need for more sugar than the human body can handle," Vicki whined, tapping her foot, jiggling the door handle, and checking her watch.

"Mochas?"

"As soon as Palmeri gives me that assignment, yes, please."

Ace took about 50 seconds to clean up before they were out of the darkroom and heading past Palmeri's office, where Palmeri herself was just returning with her coat slung over her arm and a half-eaten falafel in her hand.

"Franny!" Vicki called out cheerily. She slowed down to follow Palmeri into her office. Ace bit his lip, leaning against the doorway and knowing what the outcome of this would be. "I was just won-"

"Save it, Vale," Palmeri snapped in her characteristically cantankerous way, tossing her coat onto her the desk and dunking her falafel in the trash with the pomp of an NBA player. Really, once you got to know her, the retorts were almost endearing. "Rosique's with O'Meara on the town hall debate."

"WHAT?!" Vicki cried indignantly. Palmeri paused to shoot her a look and Vicki promptly closed her mouth, replacing her 'livid' face with her 'miffed' face.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck fuck, fu-u-u-u-uck! Rosique's a hack! I had this assignment in the _bag_, the writer likes _me_! Why on _earth_… FUCK!!!_

As Vicki mentally recovered from the whiplash, she saw Ace struggling to cover up his amusement; she shot him a withering glare.

"But, I mean… so, what do I _get_ to do?" Vicki said, turning back to Palmeri and grinning for effect. Palmeri, who was tall and intimidating, did not brook insubordination and she let everyone know this by hulking over them with her 5'11'' height and her freakishly tall shoes. Her large figure was now towering over Vicki.

"Go find Knox. He's interviewing Harvey Dent at one," Palmeri instructed her, stepping over to her desk and plopping into her chair to look over a stack of photos for the next day's issue.

"Harvey Dent…" Vicki sighed in dismay, remembering the smarmy, blonde politician. "As in, Harvey Dent?"

"When I say 'Harvey Dent'," Palmeri ground out, "I mean Assistant… District… Attorney… Harvey-"

"Dent," Vicki completed. "I'm on it!" She bowed her head a little—a sign of submission to sooth the Palmeri-beast—and backed out of the room, shoving Ace as she went. Once they were around the corner and out of earshot, Vicki punched Ace in the arm as hard as she could. "You fuckwad!"

"What?" Ace chortled, rubbing his arm.

"You knew she was gonna give me that shit instead of the debate," Vicki growled, pausing to yank her jacket off of her desk chair. It was a woolen Chanel number that Bruce—well, really, Alfred—had given her for their two month anniversary, and she took a bit of solace from the jealous looks she got from her coworkers as she and Ace whisked off toward the news offices. "You let me go on and on about how it was a sure thing."

"Vicki, you've painted yourself into a corner," Ace informed her. "Your beat is crime."

"No, it's not!"

"You're always the first one to crime scenes," Ace said, holding out his hand to tick off his list, "you're always attending court cases, and you're tight with Lieutenant Gordon. Oh, yeah, and you're also tight with the crazy vigilante," Ace added, putting his fingers up behind his ears to mimic a bat. "Big friggin plus."

"Nuh-uh," Vicki muttered.

"It's not a bad thing," Ace assured her, sliding an arm around her shoulder. "Besides, this is Gotham—if crime is your beat, you'll always have a spot near the front."

Vicki stopped abruptly. She and Ace stood in front of the office doors uncomfortably for a moment before Vicki folded her arms over her chest.

"I don't wanna have a beat," she whined, "I'm still young. Beats are for old vets who are jaded and tired and woebegone from this world…"

"_But_ _gee, Mr. White-_" Ace held his hands up to his mouth mock-terror, "_-if Clark and Lois get all the good stories, I'll never be a good reporter!_"

"You are a _who-o-o-re!_" Vicki groaned, stomping her foot as if she were a petulant child.

_Why am I even acting this way… It's the neuroses, it's the crazy, it's welling up… Ye gods, why must I possess a uterus?_

Vicki side-stepped Ace, who was busy adding her foot-stomping antics to his repertoire of impressions, and stalked over to Julian's cubicle. He was frozen in a crouch over his desk, studying an article very intently with a red pen poised above it. He didn't even hear her approach and jumped a foot into the air when she tapped him on the shoulder. His sudden spasm sent a stack of papers careening off of his desk and onto Vicki's feet.

Julian stared at Vicki, a little open-mouthed.

"So, Jules…" Vicki knelt down to help gather Julian's papers. Several looked like articles he'd written, saturated with red pen in his own handwriting; most of them looked like reading on the Isreal/Palestine conflict. "Ready to interview the shit out of Dent?" Vicki asked, handing Julian his papers as he fidgeted with his desk, which was overflowing with enormous tomes and Diet Pepsi cans.

"Yeah, well, uh…" Julian kept his eyes trained on the papers, snatching them out of Vicki's hands and turning his back on her. The papers fluttered to his desk. Vicki was about to ask what was wrong when she felt Ace's hand on her shoulder.

"Why don't you go get a cab," Ace said, gently scooting her out of the cubicle, "and I'll send Julian down when he's put his dissertation away."

"But you promised me coffee!" Vicki insisted angrily. "There was to be sugar and pretentious discussion of that French film you made me watch."

"You voluntarily viewed the masterpiece, '_Jean de Florette'_," Ace said, reaching into his pocket. He presented Vicki with one of the golf-ball sized lollipops he'd bought from the vendor downstairs. "And here's your sugar fix."

Vicki sighed, narrowed her eyes at him, and took the lollipop.

"Fine," she grumbled, yanking the lollipop's protective plastic off, "but don't think this doesn't look highly suspicious." Ace nodded and softly pushed her toward the door.

Julian leaned out of the cubicle and craned his neck to watch Vicki swagger off and disappear down the hall. When she was gone, he banged his head against the wall of the cubicle and groaned. Ace patted him on the shoulder.

"I'm just…" Julian began, "… I can't stand to be around her for long periods of time. It makes me want to…" he gulped hard, "say things."

"I have a remedy for that: don't," Ace scolded. "You get between a girl and her billionaire, she won't dump him; she's just going to end up hating you." It was on the tip of Ace's tongue to tell Julian that Vicki was troubled by her relationship with Wayne. In actuality, Ace was sure that Julian was much more suited and deserving of Vicki than Bruce Wayne ever would be, but he felt that letting Vicki figure that out for herself would serve her better than his manipulations.

"I'm not sure I can just be her friend," Julian confessed, rubbing his temples. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall of the cubicle, but images of Vicki just danced across his eyelids like a silent horror movie. Three torturous months of watching her prance around in designer duds with a rich brute on her arm and he was still trapped in 'pining' mode — rather than 'suicide' mode.

"Oh, an ultimatum," Ace replied in caustic enthusiasm, leaning against the wall next to Julian. "Kudos on the imagination!" He gave a thumbs-up sign and a grin.

"What do you recommend?" Julian snapped, grabbing his jacket and shuffling through the mounds of notes and papers to find his notepad for the Harvey Dent interview.

"Oh, me?" Ace said, "I'd recommend a healthy dose of shutting your trap and taking the pain." Ace stopped Julian from his incessant searching and held up the notepad for him. Shoving it in Julian's front jacket pocket, he imparted what he hoped would be the right wisdom. "Be there as her friend, if you really care about her. Even if it kills you."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Why do they call you 'Two-Face'?"

"Excuse me?"

Normally imperturbable Harvey Dent turned his head toward Vicki with a look of mild vexation on his face. It was oddly divorced from his blonde hair and dimples.

"Some of the detectives in the Internal Affairs unit call you 'Two-Face'," Vicki explained, snapping a shot of Dent's aggravated visage. "Why do you think that is?"

"Well, this is the first time I'm hearing it," Dent replied, without missing a beat. "Couldn't tell you why."

Vicki snapped another shot; when she pulled away from her camera, she caught Julian glaring at her from his seat in front of Dent. She sheepishly mouthed "_Sorry!_" and pretended to examine the light streaming in from the window behind Dent. Julian cleared his throat.

"Uh, Mr. Dent, what is your response to critics who say that you're unfairly persecuting Gotham police officers?" Julian asked, trying to inject as much authority into his voice as possible. He was referring to the Internal Affairs prosecutions that were currently under way, which Dent was receiving a lot of flack about, according to his sources. Actually, they were Vicki's sources, as he would be rudely reminded of by Doug, his bastard news editor.

"I'm trying to hold city officials accountable," Dent answered smoothly. "Just because you enforce the law does not mean you're above it. Prosecution, not persecution, that's all it is."

_What perfect sound bites those will make_, Vicki thought to herself. Her irrational hatred of Dent was partially colored by the fact that Dent's story wasn't very high-profile. Any picture she took of him would be reduced to thumbnail size, no matter how well she captured his latent vanity.

"And what about selectivity?" Julian pressed, an edge creeping into his voice. Both Vicki and Dent were temporarily shocked by the backbone Julian seemed to have suddenly developed. Earlier in the interview, he'd been too skittish to even ask Dent about Dent Sr.'s dubious dealings. Now, he was pulling out his wild card. "Five out of six cops you indicted were brought up on corruption charges," Julian continued, relaxing in his seat, taking his chin in his hand and furrowing his left brow. "But none on police brutality, which has reportedly jumped up 68 percent since the Arkham breakout. Why is that?" Julian was finally the very epitome of swaggering journalistic gumption.

"So, first I'm persecuting Gotham P.D.," Dent considered, leaning back in his seat to mirror Julian, "then I'm letting them off too easy. Well, which is it, Mr. Knox?" Julian shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hadn't thought this far ahead and Dent was slicker than most crusaders.

"What _are_ the plans for sorting out the Narrows," Julian finally countered, going for a safer route, "which is where those reports are coming from? Your opponents have all but forgotten that region in their campaign rhetoric…"

"I appreciate that Gotham P.D. is stretched thin trying to sort out the Narrows," Dent began, selecting his words with careful, slow calculation, "and I am doing my best to make sure this force is qualified and ready to deal with it."

Vicki snapped another shot of Dent

"Why does corruption in government strike such a chord with you?" Vicki asked, intruding on the interview again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Julian shooting her another look, but she kept her eyes trained on Dent. His grin faded a little. He considered her for a moment, looking at Vicki as though he were less thinking about her question than sizing her up.

"Gotham politicians and officials have become too complacent and comfortable to carry out their real responsibility, which is to uphold justice," he answered after a moment.

"And you…" Vicki let a flirtatious grin creep on to her face, provoking him.

"Let justice be done," Dent shrugged, "though the heavens fall."

"Aristotle," Julian interjected, citing the quote. He swiftly rose from his seat and jammed his notepad back into his pocket. Dent followed suit, extending his hand for a handshake, but Julian backed away immediately. "I guess we're done here, Mr. Dent. Good luck." With that, Julian whisked out of the room, leaving Vicki to gather her purse and camera alone with Dent.

Vicki shot Dent a timid smile as an apology for Julian's abrupt exit.

"Well, guess I'll see you at the banquet, Miss Vale," Dent asserted, readjusting his tie. "I heard you're due for recognition…"

"I am," Vicki answered, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.

"Are you-"

"Sorry, I've gotta…" Vicki trailed off once the door to Dent's office had swung shut behind her. She jogged a little and finally caught up with Julian in the lobby. His pace was on par with an Olympic runner running away from a bear. "Way to leave me hanging with the skeazeball," Vicki said once she managed to get side-by-side with Julian. He stayed silent as they exited and found themselves on the street. He began to hail a cab, but then whirled around to face Vicki.

"Jesus, this is why we can't work together," he barked. "You need to stay out of the Q & A portion. It's _my_ interview."

"I-I just thought you might get something good," Vicki stuttered.

"Then tell _me_," Julian insisted, "don't leave me hanging in the wind; and for God's sake…" He trailed off when confronted with Vicki's doe-eyed shock. He turned toward the traffic again. "Y'know what, never mind…"

"What?" Vicki asked incredulously, edging her way toward the curb, into Julian's view. "What's wrong, why are you always so angry at me?"

She sounded almost hurt. Julian could've told her the truth, that watching Dent size her up like a piece of ass made him want to gouge out his own eyeballs, but Ace's words came ringing back in his ears.

"Vicki, I'm crazy about…" Julian started out strong, then wavered, and abandoned his admission of love or lust or like or whatever. "The election," he finished lamely. "Everyone's going to be worried about who's endorsing Batman, not the issues. It's all making me a little crazy." Julian shoved his hands into his pockets, refusing to meet Vicki's gaze. "I mean, you heard Dent; he swallowed his tongue trying to sanction Batman."

Julian felt Vicki's hand on the small of his back; she was giggling, but not cruelly.

"Luckily, he's that crazy third-party candidate who's just running for the fun of it," she assured him.

"That's a little presumptuous," Julian muttered.

They hailed a cab back to the Times offices and shared coffee with Ace in the first floor café. When Vicki brought up Bruce Wayne, Julian burnt his tongue on his scalding Irish coffee…

But he managed to stay silent.


	9. Surprises Are Foolish Things

A/N: Hello-o-o-o-o (oh... oh... oh...)

Warnings: Coarse language. Broken glass and formaldehyde. Here be monsters.

References: _Firefly, Scrubs,_ and _Buffy._

**

* * *

**

CHAPTER NINE: Surprises Are Foolish Things

**()()()()()()()()()()**

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

Jane Austen

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"_After a bit, you realize that everyone isn't comforting you. They're telling you what's wrong with you."_

_-Harleen Quinzel_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

"Are you trying to gouge out your eyes?"

"Babs, this is an eyelash curler."

Holding her breath, Vicki leaned forward against the bathroom counter towards the mirror and carefully clamped her eyelashes in the metal contraption that Babs was so fascinated by. She exhaled with relief when it was done and promptly began to dab her eyelashes with mascara. In the mirror, she caught Babs giving her a look of disdain and confusion. Vicki giggled so hard that she snorted.

"I don't understand why you're doing all this work," Babs said, playing with a lipstick cap. "Your boyfriend's not even going to be there."

Vicki stopped giggling and rolled her eyes.

"Babs, ever heard of tact?" she grumbled, lining her lips with a subtle, pinkish gloss.

"That's just not saying true stuff," Babs replied.

Barbara Gordon II was wise beyond her years. The twelve-year-old spitfire was one of the most unapologetic people Vicki had ever met—she immediately made it no secret that she hated Vicki's short, ice blue dress—and probably eons more mature than Vicki would ever be. That was why it stung that Babs was right; despite her naiveté, she said exactly what Vicki was trying not to think about.

Around three that afternoon, Alfred had called to inform Vicki that Bruce had some unexpected business to take care of. When Vicki pressed, she managed to wring out some details: Dr. Crane's thugs were on the move out of the Narrows tonight and word on the street was that he sought to do business with Gambol; it was the perfect opportunity for Batman to catch Crane, when he was moving out of the stronghold he'd created.

When Vicki rang Barbara, she found out that Jim had abandoned their date for basically the same reason—although Barbara was not privy to quite as many details. Barbara suggested both of them go together to the banquet so that they wouldn't be dateless and pathetic. Vicki hoped that going with Barbara would at least lessen the barrage of "where's your rich boyfriend" questions.

Vicki added the last touches to her makeup as Babs looked on.

"It's not just about him," Vicki sighed, popping her lips to even the gloss. Before Vicki could scold Babs for being so negative, Barbara appeared at the door.

"Zipper help maybe?" she asked, gesturing to the back of her brown, satin halter dress that flowed elegantly past her ankles. As Vicki assisted Barbara, she couldn't help but think that, even in a designer gown and expensive shoes, Vicki still felt like a tramp in comparison to Barbara's simple beauty.

"So what'd you say to Jim when he said he wasn't coming," Vicki asked as Barbara made a few adjustments to her hair.

"Well, I stayed perfectly calm, offered to accept his award for him," Barbara replied, adding a spritz of hairspray to the bun piled atop her head, "and then I asked him if he remembered that sex we were planning to have _ever_ again." Vicki snorted; Babs stuck out her tongue and made a throaty, heaving noise. "How do you think you got here?" Barbara deadpanned, turning to her daughter. "Now, Marcie's in the other room, she's working her way through college, she needs this job. Do _not_ ruin this. Remember that-"

"'If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow'," Babs recited. "Sensei Rob reminds me every day."

Barbara smiled and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

"Good girl," she said. "Don't forget to practice your _Vaganova_ arm positions." Barbara now turned to Vicki. "Off to the self-congratulations?"

"After you," Vicki said, tousling Bab's hair as they exited the bathroom.

The two women grabbed their jackets and set out from the little apartment into the chill March air toward a main street to call a cab. The neighborhood was still awake, treasuring the extended sunlight hours of spring. A few kids sped past on their bikes; Vicki felt a pang of bitterness when she spotted a couple walking down the opposite street, hand-in-hand.

"You know, Bab's sensei is about your age," Barbara remarked, drawing her jacket closer and shivering. "Strong jaw, very polite, likes kids…"

"Do _not_ tempt me."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Vicki!"

Vick cringed when she registered the voice that was calling after her. It was the amazingly blithe Harvey Dent, here to make a tedious bout of mingling that much worse. Sharply inhaling a breath, Vicki turned to him. Dent was heading toward her quickly, with a tall alluring brunette being pulled along, somewhat reluctantly, by her arm.

"Rachel, this is the photographer I told you about, Vicki Vale," Dent introduced. Vicki extended her hand to the brunette, who smiled at her sympathetically as if to immediately establish that neither of them wanted to be there. "Vicki, this is my date," Harvey continued, gesturing to the woman, "A.D.A. Rachel Dawes."

"Office romance," Vicki remarked. "Bit risqué for a political candidate, isn't it?"

Both Dent and Ms. Dawes flushed and exchanged uncomfortable glances for a moment. Judging from the reaction, the couple was only on their first or second date. Vicki sipped at her champagne smugly and then felt a tug at her elbow from behind her, reminding her to introduce her fellow minglers.

"Mr. Dent, Ms. Dawes," Vicki said, pivoting to gesture towards her friends, "this is my colleague Penelope Olson" —Peg gave a cute little wave— "and my former professor, Barbara Gordon." Barbara and Dawes shook hands and the entire party exchanged pleasantries.

"Is Bruce around here?" Dawes asked Vicki a minute later. Vicki groaned inwardly as she reeled off her automatic response for the umpteenth time.

"He had to cancel; something about angry stockholders."

"That's too bad," Harvey said, "Rachel was looking forward to seeing him."

Vicki raised an eyebrow—Peg and Barbara did too, although she couldn't see them.

"My mother worked for the Wayne family when I was young," Dawes explained. "Bruce and I were childhood friends."

"Oh, yes, he, uh, mentioned you a few times," Vicki said, adding perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm. She was lying through her teeth; Bruce had never mentioned the young, attractive Rachel Dawes a single time.

"Is Bianculli still teaching Constitutional Law?" Dent asked, sensing Vicki's discord and breaking the tension.

"I believe he's somewhere around here," Barbara answered, craning her head around the room in a desperate attempt to find Professor Bianculli. "I saw him… ah, yes. He and his partner are speaking with Dean Guerrero over by the door."

"Well, Rachel and I should probably stop there…" Dent nodded to each of the single women in turn. "Enjoy your evening, ladies."

"It was nice meeting you," Dawes said to Vicki as Dent whisked her off. Vicki smiled after her until the couple was far off and then downed the glass of champagne in one gulp.

"Y'know, I think they went cheap this year…" Vicki mused, savoring the taste and licking her lips.

"I'm sorry Vick," Peg said, leaning over to put an arm around Vicki. Perhaps Peg could tell that the mere discovery of Rachel's existence had added another layer to Vicki's Neurotic Mountain of Crazy. Or maybe Peg was just reacting to the apparent depression and connecting it to the fact that _everybody_ they ran into that night mentioned Bruce's absence.

Vicki set her head on Peg's shoulder momentarily, grateful for the morale either way.

"I don't see why you hate him so much," Barbara interjected, studying Dent's frame as he headed off.

"The air of scumbag entitlement," Vicki muttered darkly.

"He seemed polite, one might dare say friendly," Barbara said, raising an eyebrow calculatingly at Vicki. The piqued blonde set her champagne glass on a nearby table and grabbed her gold clutch purse.

"I'm gonna go see what's taking so long with Harley in the bathroom," Vicki murmured, running and hand through her straightened locks. She navigated through the crowd, across the hall toward a wall, any wall, and leaned against it momentarily.

This was the worst fucking night of her life. She was sorely tempted to go out for a smoke, but then she'd come in reeking of tobacco and Peg would lecture her. Lectures, homilies, anecdotes, tidbits, recommendations, suggestions, advice… Every kind of opinion had been unloaded on her tonight, and all about her famous boyfriend. Oh, sure, there had been a light dinner, a boring speech, and everyone clapped when her name was mentioned on the list of distinguished alumni. But the mingling was going to kill her.

"Hey, kid."

Vicki looked up to see the gentle grin of Dr. Emilius Rudge. They hadn't spoken for almost a year, when she angrily confronted him about her experience at Arkham. The circumstances had changed drastically; her accusations of foul play were more or less confirmed. Yet he stood there, smiling as though she was still his undergraduate disciple.

"Dr. Rudge," Vicki said, nodding in his direction before setting off at a brisk walk. He hurried along and matched her stride.

"Congratulations on the recognition-"

"Bite me."

"Yes, well," Rudge chuckled, "you always were a colorful girl."

Vicki came to an abrupt halt and turned to him.

"Is it true Dean Guerrero is going to revoke your tenure?" she asked, smirking at him. "After you've done such good work and inspired _so many_." She was speaking solely of Dr. Crane, of course.

"Don't forget that you were among them," he warned, his grin wavering and darkness passing over his brown eyes. His equally dark brown skin had acquired a few wrinkles since she'd seen him last, but his dignified air had never left.

"I was a child," Vicki snapped.

"Youth has always been an attribute you utilize," he told her, letting his eyes rove her bright blue figure down to the golden pumps. Vicki wanted to shiver, but couldn't; letting him know he unnerved her would be worse than letting him have his fill. Once upon a time, she would have considered this humorous. "The charges won't be a problem," he added cryptically, his gaze returning to her face. "I'll be stepping out soon. Enjoy your evening."

He turned and melted into the crowd, leaving Vicki flummoxed, standing stupidly by a decorative palm tree next to the restroom.

'_The charges won't be a problem'… 'I'll be stepping out soon'? What _is_ that?_ Vicki thought. She growled under her breath and stormed into the bathroom. It was mercifully abandoned except for one person, Harleen Quinzel. The brunette was leaning against the sink, pursing her lips in the mirror, dabbing lipstick at her lips like a surgeon.

"Goddamnit…" Vicki muttered to herself, puzzling over Dr. Rudge's cryptic words. She set off toward a stall to sit, get some alone time, and… maybe camp out until the banquet was over.

"Vicki…" Harley jumped in her path, "does this shade of lipstick make me look like a clown?" She held her chin up high to cast light on her lips for Vicki to see. It was a garish, bright red color that jumped out from her face. She had a petite, almost emaciated figure and face, but the lipstick made her look like she actually had lips. The shade looked striking with her pale skin and little black shift dress.

"No," Vicki replied, slowly shaking her head. "It makes you look like a prostitute who caters exclusively _to_ clowns."

Harley's face fell.

"Oh my god…" She hurried back to the mirror and grabbed a paper towel, hurriedly wiping it off. Feeling suddenly remorseful, Vicki grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"I'm sorry, Harley," Vicki sighed, wrenching the towel out of Harley's hand. "It's just tonight, with absentee boyfriend and everyone unloading their advice on me…" Vicki trailed off, not meeting Harley's gaze. "It's made me go all blech." Vicki made a face to emphasize her mood, making Harley giggle a tiny bit.

"I understand." Harley shrugged, staring up at Vicki with her earnest hazel eyes. "Serial monogamist here. After a bit, you realize that everyone isn't comforting you…" Harley looked down, fidgeting with her hands. "They're telling you what's wrong with you."

Vicki picked up the lipstick, untwisted it, and handed it back to Harley, who tentatively realigned her lip color.

"You wanna go…" Vicki let her sentence hang, letting a pack of cigarettes peek out of her purse. She wiggled her eyebrows and grinned. "I bet the lounge is still open."

Harley grinned and nodded. They slipped out the door.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Why was your mom there?" Harley asked incredulously. Vicki held her head in her hand, still laughing—in some mortification—as she related the story.

"She picked that night, of all nights, for a surprise _bonding_ visit," she said, taking a drag of her cigarette once she regained breath.

"God, your mom actually took the time to do that?" Harley exclaimed in longing. She shrugged sheepishly at Vicki's befuddled expression. "That really wasn't the point of the story, was it?" Vicki just laughed and nodded in understanding.

"Okay, so the door flies open and there's my mother," Vicki continued, relating a particularly lurid tale from her freshman year at Gotham State University. "And then there's this, like, air of dead silence as she takes in the scene. I mean, there's me, half drunk, sitting on top of some frat guy, and there's Peg about to smoke her first joint and, of course, Lambert, in his dress and his heels and his big pink wig! My heart is pounding out of my chest and we're all still. Her mouth is gaping open, she's got her sunglasses on, but I can tell that her eyes are just huge with shock. And she _closes_ the door."

"What?!" Harley coughed.

"She closed the door!" Vicki laughed. "Peg and I kicked the boys out, we cleaned up everything, threw the booze out the window, y'know? Cause we figured that she was going to go tell the R.A. But I go out twenty minutes later and she's just sitting in the lounge, pursing her lips and reading an issue of _Cosmo_. We all went out to dinner and she smiled the whole time, berating us for being such dumb shits. Oh god…" Vicki took another drag of her cigarette, listening to the high-pitched tinkling of Harley's laughter.

Being back in the student lounge, with its crappy couches from the seventies, suspiciously stained carpets, mismatched lamps, and air of disarray was making her nostalgic for the simplicity of college life. Not that double majoring and minoring had made it simple. After her little drunken phase, Vicki had become quite the bookworm. She'd camped out in the various lounges on campus trying to redeem herself through vigorous study. At least college had a structure, a game plan. Vicki was flailing through reality without one.

"I wish I'd been that wild when I was here," Harley admitted wistfully.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Vicki replied, flicking some of the ash off of the tip of her cigarette. "I mean, I wasted thousands of dollars on a semester of screwing around that still fucking haunts me."

"What do you mean?" Harley asked.

"Academic probation, suspension for drinking on campus, shit like that…" Vicki mumbled, letting the sentence drop off awkwardly. She and Harley stood in pregnant silence for a moment, hovering between acquaintance-friendship and honest confessions. They'd never exactly been close; they only socialized only when Peg felt the need to have them both with her.

Their encounter was shorted by a flicker of movement in the corner of Vicki's eye. She slowed her breathing as she listened in for the source.

Light from the banquet seeped in as the side door opened and shut quickly. On the other side of the room, behind several pieces of furniture, Vicki was perfectly positioned to see that the Dean of GSU, Martin Guerrero, had stepped out. He was embroiled in an argument with Dr. Rudge, waving his arms around, speaking low enough that the hisses of his anger barely echoed. Rudge had his arms crossed over his chest, shadows filling in his features so that Vicki couldn't read him.

"Well, you did pretty well for yourself anyway," Harley said, oblivious to the action. Before Harley could speak again, Vicki held up her hand in a gesture of silence.

Guerrero and Rudge hadn't noticed Harley's squeaky voice. Rudge gestured down a hallway and the two men took off, presumably to settle their matter privately.

"I'll be right back," Vicki whispered, opening her purse and pulling out a tiny digital camera she'd been carrying around in case Bruce called her. Rudge's words from earlier floated around Vicki's mind. It had never crossed her mind that Rudge would do anything dangerous or homicidal, but he _had_ mentored Dr. Crane. That had to mean something. His tenure was being revoked, so he had motive to hurt Guerrero.

Keeping her eyes trained on Rudge and Guerrero as they descended a staircase, she slipped out of her pumps, handed Harley the clutch, and hurried after the two men with her toes pointed to decrease noise.

"You're gonna follow them?" Harley whispered, following on her tip toes and clawing at the purse with anxiety. "Why?"

"It's news," Vicki shrugged, turning on the camera as they descended the staircase. When they arrived at the bottom, there were three halls. One was lit and Vicki could hear the men's shoes clicking against the floor. Vicki hurried off down that hall and pressed herself against the first corner, leaning around to see the men round another corner.

"You can't _follow_ them!" Harley hissed in Vicki's ear.

"It's not that I want to," Vicki whispered, "it's a compulsion. I swear." She held up her fingers in a mock Boy Scout salute, left the fish-mouthed Harley standing there and continued to trail the two men all the way to the back exit of the building. They stopped there.

Vicki's eyes scanned the hallway; no security cameras. Some dim light fixtures, enough that she could get a clear picture without using a flash that would end up alerting them.

"All right, where is it?" Guerrero bellowed, looking around. Vicki jerked back away from the corner and readied her camera. It sounded as though there was to be an exchange; finding foul dealings involving the Dean would be monumental. Perhaps this was the solution to the charges Rudge spoke of.

She could hear the door opening. There was a sudden muffled, crying sound and when she leaned around the corner, three large men dressed in dark clothing had entered. One was shoving a bag over Guerrero's head; the other two were pushing him to the ground.

Vicki snapped a picture. She snapped two more as the Rudge stepped back and watched the men remove Guerrero's jacket, belt, and his ring, then bound his hands behind his back. Using a hand against the wall to keep her shaking body still, Vicki stepped up. It took all her concentration to steady her breathing and prepare to run. She'd left her cell phone in her purse. Harley couldn't be too far yet. Even if the men heard her bare feet smacking the ground, Vicki knew the groundwork too well. She'd be gone in thirty seconds.

_Be calm… Don't listen to yourself, just run…_ She took a quick breath.

When she turned, two shadows blocked her path back to the banquet. One was an enormous, bulky figure. The other was tall and slim.

"Miss Vale, of course," said the slim one, stepping into the light, revealing a roughly stitched sack and a tattered suit on him. Vicki didn't even need the sight to identify the milky voice of Jonathan Crane. "The intrepid photographer who will stop at nothing to get the story," he laughed, stepping farther toward her.

"Well, this is a surprise…" Vicki murmured, stepping back and clutching her camera.

The bulky figure stepped up into the light as well, revealing a grotesquely disfigured man. His skin was scaly and calloused with a greenish tint. He had tiny grey lips that left his yellowing, numerous teeth bared at her. His shoulders alone were four times her width and his eyes shone blood red when he narrowed them at her. The smell of sewer reeked off of him, so badly that Vicki's eyes watered.

Vicki felt a small whimper escape her throat. She clutched at her chest, willing her heart to stay inside its cavity. He growled fiercely in response, more animal than human.

"Now, now," Crane tsked, "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"

The only other way out of this place was down another hall. But it ended in a janitorial closet that would be locked. She needed to get past Crane. His associate took up almost the entire hallway though. She could try to get past Rudge and the thugs holding Dean Guerrero, to get out the door and toward a trigger for the campus security system. Those thugs would be alert and faster on the uptake though.

She stayed stationery as Crane came toward her, his hands folded in front of him. Her eyes fixed on his dirty, scarlet tie.

_Fuck… fuck… fuck…_ _If I can just get past them, just these two…_

Before Crane could say another word, Vicki let her fist reel back and fly directly for the spot on the sack that was presumably his right eye. He crumpled. Vicki then punched his gut and when he was bent over, she used every ounce of might in her body to push him into the disfigured thug.

It was a minor annoyance. Vicki had enough time to slip through, but as she set off on her run, she could hear the monstrous man's thunderous breathing right behind her. His sausage fingertips brushed against her hair as she sped down the hallway and pivoted around a corner.

They arrived at the bottom of the staircase. When Vicki stepped up, she felt his massive hand encircle her ankle in a vice-like grip, throwing her off balance. Her camera clattered to the floor. She collapsed forward, crying out in pain as her elbows, knees, and stomach banged against the linoleum stairs. At the top of the steps, she could see Harley with her bright pale legs and little black dress walking up.

Harley looked down at the commotion. She hesitated as the monstrous thug lifted Vicki up like a feather and threw her over his back. Vicki started vainly kicking and beating at his body with her limbs—"Let me go you prick!"—and when she looked up again, Harley was gone.

_Okay, not _entirely_ fucked_, Vicki thought. He had her strapped to his body pretty well, so much so that she could barely breathe—which was difficult, considering that his sewer odor was directly in front of her nostrils. Each step he took, he jabbed his shoulder into her stomach.

As she attempted to flail, she observed their route. He took her the same way they'd run, through the door and outside. He set off at a run. Vicki put her head down and bit her lip to keep from hurling.

**

* * *

**

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* * *

"Kidnapping?" Vicki scoffed, "Of a mildly public figure?"

"Everyone needs a nest egg," Crane said, inspecting Guerrero's bonds.

Vicki had put her head down as Scaly—what she had dubbed her kidnapper—carried her out of Andersen Hall, where the banquet was being held, and when she looked up again, he was squeezing her through a little hallway. Judging from the sickly sanitary smell and the anatomical posters on the wall, they were in the Gotham State College of Dentistry. Guerrero was shivering in his underclothes, tied to a chair with a blindfold on.

Scaly lifted her up and flipped her around, making her eyes water as she felt her blood readjusting itself to an upright position. She was so dizzy she almost fell over until Scaly caught either of her arms in his massive palms and held her up to Dr. Crane. Her hand was vaguely sore from punching him.

They were definitely in the dentistry college. The sick smell was coming from a pile of cadavers that had been discarded in a corner by Crane's thugs—who were nowhere to be seen.

"Damn, you've got ambition," Vicki said caustically. "Gotham drug kingpin. Not like anyone's done that before."

Dr. Crane sauntered up to her and roughly took her chin in his hand so that she was looking up and directly into the holes of his sack-mask.

"Are you referring to my perfectly legitimate business enterprise?" he asked.

"I'm a traditionalist," Vicki said, shrugging her shoulders as best she could. She jerked her chin away and rolled her neck—she hoped it would make her look braver than she was. "It's not legitimate without train tracks and a black mustache. The potato sack is kind of sad."

Dr. Crane sighed and turned away as the three thugs dressed all in black reentered. Upon closer examination, it wasn't super espionage equipment—just contraband weapons, black sweaters, black trousers, and hockey masks. The cobbled together uniforms indicated Crane's need for secrecy—Vicki prayed she'd at least ruined that aspect of his plan. One of the thugs reeled off a report about a secure perimeter and delivery of the ransom demand. Crane nodded and waved one off to the door, for lookout duty. He pointed to Vicki, then to the pile of cadavers and their empty carts.

They wheeled one of the carts over to her. Vicki felt herself being lifted again by Scaly and when she realized their intent, she began to struggle, thrashing her limbs wildly. The two grabbed her legs and Vicki choked in horror when they managed to shove her down in the cold metal cart. The other two backed off, but Scaly remained there with one palm pressed down on her chest, nearly suffocating her. Vicki weakly continued to surge against him, clawing at his hand to little effect. He stared down at her with a brutal glare, widening his lips to display even more sharp teeth. She half wondered if he was human.

Dr. Crane's head popped up next to Scaly.

"Do you know what woman's first sin is?"

"Inane pontification, check," Vicki choked out, letting her efforts to escape lessen until she was lying there, shivering against the frigid metal. The stench of formaldehyde was emanating at her, making her sick and dizzy.

Dr. Crane shook his head, sighing. He waved Scaly off and Vicki gasped as the weight of Scaly's hand came up off of her chest.

"It's not lust, or jealousy, or abortion," Crane continued, ambling around the cart as Vicki coughed and rolled within it. "Shall I enlighten you?" Now he took the side of the cart in his hands and bent down over her until his face was inches from hers. Vicki instinctively stiffened, pushing herself further down. "It's curiosity," he whispered.

He leaned back and looked across. Vicki followed his gaze. Through the glare of the bright fluorescent lights, Vicki squinted up and saw the face of Dr. Rudge staring down at her from the other side. His jacket and tie were loosened, his shoulders limp, and he gazed down at her with a sad mouth and longing eyes.

"You lured me," Vicki breathed, remembering the cryptic words that had inspired her to follow him in the first place. He'd known she would follow. It hurt her to think that Rudge still knew her so well and she could feel cold drips rolling down her cheeks, drifting over her neck to melt in her hair. She decided it was the formaldehyde making her cry.

"I'm so sorry…" Rudge murmured, his low baritone voice cracking. He reached for Vicki's hand but she snatched it away from him. A growl indicated that Scaly was alerted by the sudden movement and Vicki realized that he was looking on out of eyesight.

"I offered you an apple," Crane said with amusement dancing in his tone, like a child on the verge of giggling. "What could you do but take it?"

"Vicki, we're not going to hurt you," Rudge tried to assure her.

"Well, I'm sure as fuck not a hostage," Vicki said furiously, running through possible outcomes of this situation in her head. Crane could kill her. He could experiment on her. He could torture her. He could bury her alive. He could cut her up and feed her to Scaly. He could let Scaly do other things to her. She wasn't important or rich enough for a ransom demand…

But she had connections, and one of them was currently dressed up like a bat and searching for Crane at the moment.

"I don't know who _he_ is," Vicki warned in a low voice, looking back at Crane, only to find that he was out of her eyesight.

"Vicki," Rudge pleaded, leaning toward her and reaching for her cheek. Vicki glared, but she allowed him to take her face gently in his soft, deep brown hand. "I promise, I never meant-"

A shot went off. Rudge jerked. His eyes popped wide, his mouth fell open and blood welled up and out of his lips. He pitched forward, falling over Vicki, rocking the cart dangerously from side to side. Vicki squeaked, trying to grasp what was going on. Rudge's body was jerking limply. She felt a gush of warm, thick liquid flow over her chest and stomach. The formaldehyde stench suddenly mixed with a metallic odor and when Vicki lifted her hands to push him off of her, her entire body had to surge up. He crumpled to the ground next to the cart.

Vicki sat up. Waves of scarlet blood were seeping into her lovely dress and her hands were shaking wildly, coated in the sticky substance. Her ears were ringing, but she could hear Dean Guerrero whimpering in the background.

"He was starting to get annoying…" Crane sighed, standing colloquially by her side with his mask off, revealing the purpling eye that Vicki had right hooked. He pocketed the tiny revolver he'd used to shoot Rudge and folded his hands, as though it were a perfectly rational explanation for murdering his ally.

"I feel for you," Vicki spat. Unsure of what to do, she wiped her hands on her skirt and tried to regain her breath. She numbly noted that the other thugs were gone.

Scaly dragged Rudge's body away and plopped him on top of the cadavers.

"In the interest of full disclosure," Crane said, sidling up to her, "your acquaintance with Gotham's dark knight is only tangential to my reason for bringing you here." Vicki raised an eyebrow at him, unable to form words. He opened his suit and pulled a needle and tourniquet from the breast pocket. A basic heroin kit, except that the liquid in the needle had a green tint. "As the contemporary Eve or Pandora, you will suffer the consequences of your insatiable curiosity. Or perhaps not, it depends." He began to tie the tourniquet above Vicki's elbow. She didn't resist, completely aware that Scaly was behind her with his wretched breath blowing over her back.

"On what?" she asked softly through gritted teeth.

"How much you've had to drink tonight," Crane shrugged.

He paused a few seconds, holding her wrist in his hand, studying her arm as it became paler and paler from the lack of blood flow. Vicki studied it too.

"You know," Crane said, startling Vicki with his genial, almost conversational manner, "most people in your position beg or cry or scream. You just, well, you seem quick to anger. I'd like to help with that."

He folded her hand into a fist and then, letting the needle skim the inside of her elbow, he found the dark vein he was looking for and jabbed the needle in. Vicki gasped and jerked from the pain. She watched in mute horror as he pumped the white-green substance into her blood stream. "This right here," he said, leaning in with his angelic, wild-eyed grin, "this is a liquid form of my fear toxin that I've been experimenting with for some weeks now. It's slow acting, but it's got quite the kick. My previous residence had a limited range of guinea pigs to choose from, so I saved it for the one that got away."

Vicki stopped breathing. Then she started again, making a last ditch effort to slow her heart rate. Her entire body began to tremble. When Crane slid the needle out of her arm, she flung her head to the other side and gripped the cart. She retched violently, heaving up bile and French toast bits all over the linoleum floor.

One of the thugs in black had come back into the room. He walked up to Crane and whispered something urgently in his ear. Crane nodded and waved him off.

"I'll check back in a few minutes," Crane chuckled as Vicki wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand. She turned back in time to see Crane exit the room, mask in hand.

Scaly's enormous hand was back around her neck and he pushed Vicki back into the cart. He fiddled with something on the side of the cart and she caught on to what was happening. Crane was locking her inside the cadaver cart to maximize his results.

The metal lid slammed over her, plunging her in darkness. Vicki heard clanging on the side and knew that Scaly was struggling with putting the lock on. Summoning every ounce of adrenaline in her body, she rocked violently against the opposite side, knocking the cart over. The lid flew open and Vicki log rolled out as far as she could, bumping into the other cadaver carts.

She scrambled to her feet to see Scaly hulking slowly toward her. Vicki darted around the carts and stumbled over the cadaver pile, feeling the tender flesh between her toes. Looking around for any weapons, she saw a tray of scalpels and medical instruments to her right. On her left were an assortment of vials and beakers.

Without breaking stride, Scaly threw aside the carts. Vicki grasped one of the beakers just as he took her by the neck and hoisted her in the air. She was kicking and struggling in the air, choking for a moment and when he brought in his hand, to menace or threaten her—maybe bite her with his monstrous teeth—Vicki brought the beaker down on his face. It shattered and Vicki ignored the blinding pain that pulsed through her arm in order to shove the shards down into his eyes.

Scaly roared and dropped her on top of the carts. His throat emitted every noise ranging from piercing cries and throaty howls.

Vicki landed with a thud, the metal carts bruising her entire back. The pain of the glass in her hand made her eyes water and her teeth chatter, but she managed to push herself up with the uninjured hand. Side-stepping Scaly, who was writhing around and clutching his face, she grabbed a scalpel and limped over to Guerrero.

"Oh my god, oh my god," he fretted, trying to curl into the fetal position as Vicki sawed weakly at the plastic cuffs, keeping her afflicted hand against her stomach. When she succeeded, he pitched himself forward and clawed at the blindfold.

"C'mon!" Vicki urged, gesturing toward the door. Shocked and wordless, he went with her.

The hallway was dark and abandoned. Crane must've taken off with the other goons, figuring that Scaly, who was still screaming in pain, could handle the hostages.

"This way," Guerrero insisted, finding his voice and turning toward the fire exit.

Vicki tried to follow him but stopped dead in her tracks. The looming shadows began to ripple around her, swirling and jumping like a river. They snatched at her, laughing, flitting around with quick, mischievous movements.

_No. This isn't… real…_ Vicki jumped back away, turning around slowly, trying to avoid them. She blinked rapidly to clear her sight. Guerrero stood before, perplexed and studying her with fright. His features began to morph, horns rising out of his head, teeth becoming elongated. But unlike the shadows, he was backing away. As his visage devolved before her, Guerrero turned and ran toward the door.

"No… don't leave me…" Vicki gasped, reaching for him, grasping at air. He disappeared through the door and it clattered shut as Vicki's panic overtook her. She shrieked at the air, at the shadows and tried to twist away. Clutching the wall, she tried to bat them away from her, but her fingers slid straight through and they kept at her.

Finally she tripped and when her skull collided with the floor, the shadows were gone.


	10. A Fine, Fine Line

A/N: This chapter may not seem like much in the action department, but emotionally, it's a huge turning point. Vicki and Bruce make certain decisions. These events put Vicki straight in the Joker's hand. He'll definitely show up the chapter after next and stay a while.

Warnings: Usual coarse language. Weird-ass dream sequence. Lying to the police. Awkward break-up.

References: _Buffy, Emma, Persuasion, Sense & Sensibility, Juno, Scrubs, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Firefly, The Beatles, _and_ Grease._

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CHAPTER TEN: A Fine, Fine Line

**()()()()()()()()()()**

There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;  
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."  
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,  
But there's a fine, fine line between love  
And a waste of your time.

Kate Monster, Avenue Q

**()()()()()()()()()()**

"_Yeah, cause _rape_: so passé."_

_-Penelope "Peg" Georgiana Olson_

**()()()()()()()()()()**

* * *

_They were on a camping trip. The sign said they were at the intersection of 98__th__ and Holdrege. Dad was setting up the tent and Peg was gathering firewood. A monkey swung down from the fire escape and hopped onto the redwood tree in the middle of the clearing._

_Vicki was tending to the fence. There was a meteor-sized hole in the wiring. __It fell down. All she had in her hand was a shovel._

"_Can you hear that?" Dad asked, pausing as the tent sagged down from the poles. It refused to stay up straight._

"_It's so loud," Vicki whispered._

"_It doesn't matter much to me," Peg interjected, dumping the sticks in a pile. "Whispers don't arouse my fancy. They aren't yours to know."_

"_I have to know," Vicki replied, stepping through the hole in the fence. The profusion of tree branches whipped at her face, but she kept one hand balled in a fist at her side; the other clutched tightly to her shovel. Peg and Dad called after her, but their warnings were little more than mumblings. "Disturbances should be dealt with…"_

_Vicki stepped over a gutter, where a little parrot was crumpled inside. The cold of the forest was swirling around and whipping past her ears, but there was no wind. The forest hummed and thrived, yet it stood still. There was something growling, like a wolf, drawing circles in the dirt. She followed them. They led to a big metal door, bars on the windows, no walls._

_She took the shovel and swung at the door. It cracked. She swung again. It wiggled and the wind picked up. The door began to dissolve like sand. There was nothing. She dropped the shovel._

_When she returned to the intersection, everyone was gone. The tent had deflated and the stick were scattered everywhere._

"_They all left a while ago," Vicki realized._

_She stomped backwards, stepping in potholes and gopher holes, hurting her ankles as she wandered._

_A root popped up and she tripped over it before she found it. She was lying on something squishy and red._

_They were strawberries. Vicki looked up and the sky was blue again and so was the water lapping at the bank. At the edges of her vision, strawberries dangled above her. _

"_Tangy and delicious," she said, reaching for one. A hand shot out and prevented her. It pulled her up and set her on her feet._

"_Didn't I tell you that parable about women and juicy, red fruit?" Dr. Crane asked, wagging a finger. Vicki stuck her tongue out, but followed him as he stepped toward the river. The water was very blue; like blue raspberry. There was a boat, hanging around, surfing on the waves._

"_That's a holey boat," Vicki complained. Crane shook his head at her._

"_Panda, Panda, Panda…" he sighed. He turned to the boat, then back to her._

_Rudge stared at her, boring holes in her skull. She wiped them away and fluffed her hair._

"_You tore us apart and stitched us together," he told her, his mouth never moving. His hand drifted to the space above her heart. Heat emanated from him. She closed her eyes and leaned in, but she never touched him. "That's why it stopped beating."_

_Vicki opened her eyes. It was a warehouse, used for cheese storage. It was still warm. There was the growling again… She jumped up stairs, pushed open doors, climbed ladders, rode tractors, but she could not find it. Everything was empty and bare, concrete, metal, shiny. The growling was like a song; it crept closer to her ear, dancing._

_When she made her way back to the main floor, a chandelier was hanging above. Down the stairs, people were congregating. Empire waist silk gowns. Suits, white calves and queues._

_Shaking with fear, Vicki made her descent. Her foot collided with the floor and everyone began to stare._

"_Miss Smith, how wonderful to see you've made the occasion!" shouted someone from the crowd._

"_Harriet!" Ace ran up, shorter, in green silk gloves that extended to her and his matching gown flying in the wind. His eye was bruised. "You will be an old maid and that's so dreadful!__ I may be a cold-blooded jelly doughnut—but my timing's impeccable. __Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;—four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home."_

_Peg came up behind him, pink velvet all over with red trimmings. When she spoke her mouth didn't move; her grin and her eyes remained bright._

"_Harriet! She left it to himself to recollect, that Mrs. Smith was not the only widow in Bath between thirty and forty, with little to live on, and no surname of dignity."_

"_Um, sorry?" Vicki asked. They grabbed her hands and led her around the party. People she knew and loved drifted in and out of her acquaintance, but she could really only wonder where Edward was. Vicki let them lead her as she searched with no tool but her eyes. The growling never left her ears, but it was dimmed by the thrum of everyone insulting her outfit._

_Barbara II was running around in a cape and ears, bumping into everyone._

"_I'm a bat, I'm a bat, I'm a bat!" she insisted, holding her hands out as she flew. No one paid her any mind._

_Finally, Vicki came upon her own mother. She held a fan over most of her face, but her brown eyes peaked over, took a look at Vicki, and turned back to her party._

"_I don't wish to make your acquaintance," her mother said._

"_Mom?_ _I made a half-monkey, half-pony creature to please you."_

"_You're not dressed properly," her mother tsked._

"_When they were handing out costumes, I couldn't find the line. I was..." Vicki struggled for a word, "… busy."_

_"Oh yes, swimming, I remember," her mother said, rolling her eyes. "No wonder Edward doesn't want you."_

_Vicki shrugged away from her friends' hands. She backed through the crowd, which parted behind her until she reached the door. The growling was right behind it. She turned and pushed the door open._

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

Vicki woke up.

A machine was beeping in the background, pulsing steadily to the beat of her breath. Her eyelids were crusted together. She struggled to open them and when she did, she was greeted with the sight of pastel blue walls basked in the glow of a sunset. Everything stank of sterilization and chemicals, making Vicki's stomach swirl with apprehension. Her limbs were stiffly set out over a hospital bed. Her right hand was throbbing dully with heat and pain.

When she tilted her head to the right, she became dizzy and all her blood started to rush. Her head was wrapped in gauze and incredibly sore.

Closing her eyes, Vicki concentrated on moving the rest of her body, restarting circulation and tensing her idle muscles.

"Hey there _la bella durmiente_!" Vicki looked up to see a short, curly-haired nurse in purple scrubs opening the door with a chart tucked in her hand by her side. "You're finally awake and not crazy."

"How long was I not?" Vicki rasped, attempting to sit up. The dizziness started again and she sank back into the bed.

"By sunset, woulda been your sixth day," the nurse told her, taking cursory glances at the machinery and making notes. "Don't even try getting out of that bed. They brought you in with a concussion, bruising around the neck, and glass in your palm. Luckily, they got your stitches in before you woke up and went all _loca_. Took us a minute to figure out you were all pumped full of the fear toxin the Scarecrow's using."

"What did I say?" Vicki mumbled anxiously.

"Somethin' about not leaving you alone," the nurse said off-handedly, taking Vicki's right hand and unwrapping the white gauze. "That or leprechauns, _no se_."

As the nurse unraveled some new gauze, Vicki caught sight of the stitched gashes in her hand and cringed. The nurse began to wrap the wounds in fresh gauze.

"Anyway, we had to put you under until we could get a hold of some of the antidote, which didn't even work because that _cabron_ messed with his original formula." The nurse leaned in toward Vicki with a mischievously scandalized look on her face. "Then, a couple of nights ago, I was working the graveyard shift and there was a security breach. Turns out, it's your big, black guardian bat sweeping in with something even better. I mean, all he did was take his antidote to the Chief of Medicine, but I swear I caught a little bit of him as he was goin' out the door." The nurse shivered, a toothy grin overtaking her features. Then she hopped up and took her chart. "Anyway, that stuff should be outta your system by now. I'll go tell Dr. Reid you're awake."

The nurse left as quickly as she'd appeared. Vicki sighed, the memories of her abduction flooding back to her. She wished she was still asleep.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Why were you following him?" Detective Ana Ramirez asked.

"I… needed to ask Dr. Rudge something," Vicki said, unwilling to decode her psyche for some rookie cop. Ramirez's partner, a short, graying detective named Gerard Stephens was recording Vicki's statements with a detached submissiveness.

"And here I thought you'd vowed never to speak to him again," Vicki's mother interjected, stepping back in the room and leaning against the doorway. She'd been yelling at the nurses about her daughter's measly lunch.

The morning after Vicki had woken up, her parents had appeared—thanks to her father's prostate cancer, they were quite familiar with the hospital—and showed up just a few minutes before the homicide detectives had arrived to question Vicki about what had conspired in the college of dentistry the night of GSU's alumni banquet. Apparently Guerrero was practicing a form of selective memory, too traumatized to know what had gone on. Plus he'd been blindfolded.

"Well, people are allowed to change their minds, mother," Vicki sighed, narrowing her eyes at her mother. Her father, standing by her bedside, had an arm around her shoulders. He squeezed her shoulder in solidarity.

Detective Stephens cleared his throat, shooting Vicki an admonishing look.

"We got to the end of the hallway," Vicki continued. "Crane's thugs started tying up Guerrero, I turned around to run and there's Crane looming with Scaly at his beck and call."

"Scaly?" Stephens asked.

"Well… that's what I called him in my head," Vicki admitted, lowering her gaze in slight embarrassment. Ramirez looked amused; Vicki's parents stared at their daughter will ill-disguised shock. "So, I got past them and ran for it, but Scaly managed to catch up. He hoisted me over his shoulder and took me to the college of dentistry."

"Could you describe, uh, Scaly?" Stephens requested, flipping a page in his notepad.

"Like… really big," Vicki told him, scrunching up her face as she tried to summon Scaly's image. "He was maybe 6'8'', very bulky. Huge teeth, probably more than the usual 48. His skin was dry and a kind of grey-green color, ethnically Caucasian though. Oh, and he smelled like shit, like he lived in the sewer or something."

"Matches Quinzel and Russo's description," Ramirez murmured to her partner. Stephens nodded and Ramirez pulled out a photo of Scaly, nameplates in his hand, glowering at a camera. "Is this the man who took you?" Ramirez asked, handing the photos to Vicki. The blonde took a cursory glance and nodded. "His name's Waylon Jones, suspected on several counts of murder, never indicted."

"That's definitely him," Vicki murmured, leaning back into the bed.

"What happened next?" Stephens asked.

"Um, when I got there, Scaly—Jones shoved me into one of the empty cadaver carts and Crane started rambling about stuff, I didn't really pay attention. Rudge was there, he… he told me they weren't going to hurt me and then Crane shot him."

Vicki looked down at her fidgeting hands, unsure of how to feel about Rudge's death. She hadn't paid it much mind at the time. Now she was on the verge of tears and had to think of something to distract her.

_Fishing. Polka dots. Bart Simpson. Indiana Jones. Nazis. Bart Simpson in a Nazi uniform._ Vicki sighed and felt her father's reassuring half-hug contract around her.

"Crane shot me up, left with his nondescript thugs, and when Scaly tried to lock the cadaver cart I pushed it over and rolled out. He came at me, kinda picked me up by the neck and I managed to get a beaker and I broke it on his face. He started screaming and I got a scalpel to cut Guerrero's hands, cause they used those weird plastic cuffs that movers use… I don't remember anything after that."

"Do you have any idea why Crane targeted you?" Ramirez asked. "A grudge, perhaps, or unrequited affection?"

"… Nah, not really," Vicki lied. "I mean, I met him once in college, before he went off the deep end, but it's not like…" _It's not like menaced me, sent me flowers, lured me, wanted me dead or anything. Nope._ "It's not like… Nothing significant… Fuck, that concussion is really kicking in." Vicki cradled her forehead in her hand. Her vision was getting a little blurry, but she exaggerated the symptoms by moaning a little.

"If you remember anything more, you've got our number," Stephens said, stuffing the notepad in his pocket. Ramirez gave him a hard look, as if she wanted to continue the interrogation, but he jerked his head toward the door and she followed suit. "Thank you for your time, Miss Vale."

"S'all good," Vicki mumbled, shrugging out of her father's embrace and curling up against her pillows, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I swear, the damned security at that school is worthless," her father railed as soon as the detectives had shut the door behind them.

"Well, it is here too," her mother snapped. "I just checked; there were two security breaches in the last week, neither caught. Makes you wonder how many they don't know about."

"I bet they're selling the carcasses and the morphine out back," Vicki muttered sullenly.

"You're abusing sarcasm, dear," her mother scolded. Ever businesslike, her mother whipped out a briefcase full of medical and insurance forms. "Now, Victoria, we need to go over-" Vicki cut her mother off with a loud groan and shoved her head under a pillow. "We need to deal with this sooner rather than later, and if you don't, you'll end up paying it for the rest of your life. That paltry salary they give you at the _Times_ isn't going to cover your medical expenses if you want to continue eating."

"Maybe we should do this later, Lottie," her father cut in, knowing that if he didn't diffuse the situation, his wife and daughter would likely devolve into passive aggressive screaming match.

"Like when I don't have a fucking concussion!" Vicki bellowed from under her pillow.

"I'm being pragmatic," her mother insisted.

"I'm being traumatized," Vicki growled.

"So, Vick," her father cut in, "how's that boyfriend of yours?"

Vicki stopped talking for the rest of the day.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"Yes, yes, no, yes, no, and yes if I've been drinking," Ace said, pointing at each of the doctors gathered outside the door. He was situated at the end of Vicki's bed, pointing at them and telling Vicki which ones were cute enough for him to sleep with. They appeared to be interns, nervous and paying a lot of attention to an older man who was lecturing with a glazed look in his eyes, as though he had been made mechanical through giving lectures like this one hundreds of times.

"Aw, he's cute," Vicki observed of the one Ace had dubbed 'if I've been drinking'. "The glasses are adorkable."

"He's got a huge nose," Ace criticized.

"But he was in here yesterday with Dr. Reid, and he was so-o-o sweet," Vicki gushed. "His name is Sam."

"Well, guess Bruce better watch out," Ace said, rolling his eyes and sorting out the Skittles he'd brought for Vicki on her lunch tray. Vicki pursed her lips at the mention of Bruce.

"Hey, speaking of Bruce, has he been by yet?" Peg asked. She was sitting in the chair next to her bed, doing some of her _Times_ work on a laptop. Ace and Peg had decided to spend the entire afternoon with Vicki, since she'd been going mad all alone in the hospital by herself.

"The nurses said he stopped by yesterday, but I was asleep," Vicki lied, downing a handful of purple and green skittles. This was another lie. Alfred had dropped off some balloons, but her infamous boyfriend was nowhere to be found. The nurses had finally stopped asking about him.

"Julian just informed me over Facebook chat that he wants to know when you're coming back," Peg stated, typing quickly.

"Why didn't _he_ visit me," Vicki grumbled, gathering up the red Skittles.

"Well, he did," Peg reiterated, "you were just asleep. All _six_ times."

"At this point, you're just ruining my smorgasbord for funsies," Ace complained, downing the yellow Skittles. Vicki snorted and raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, fine, I'll make a real one. There's a vending machine one floor down. Any requests?"

"M&M's," Vicki demanded.

"Reese's Pieces," Peg added.

"Pretzels-"

"Ho-Hos-"

"Butterfingers-"

"Those cheesy chips-"

"Yeah, the cheddar-"

"Jesus, are you guys twelve?" Ace asked. Vicki and Peg nodded vigorously. "Okay, since I'm not Willy Wonka, will there be some contributions to this fund?" Vicki and Peg shook their heads vigorously. "_Seriously?_"

"Ho-hos are a vital part of my cognitive process," Peg insisted.

"You're the man," Vicki explained, "you're going to have to support us, for as womenfolk, we are weak and silly."

"Considering you're on the front page an average of once a week," Ace said, "one might make the mistake of thinking that you're financially sound."

"Well, I didn't get paid for it this week," Vicki replied, pointing to the door and waving wildly. "Now be off!" Mock-growling, Ace went out.

"So when do you wanna talk about it?" Peg asked, closing her laptop.

Everything went silent in the room as both pairs of eyes flew to the violently mauled copy of _The Gotham Times_ lying on Vicki's bedside table. Two days previously, staff reporter Shawn O'Meara had marched in with the assumption that he had an exclusive right to a tell-all interview with Vicki because they were colleagues. Vicki had been skeletal at best with her details, unable to acquiesce to some of the more probing questions. As a result, his final article was peppered with salacious little details and speculations. Vicki had taken her anger out on the paper.

Just about everyone assumed the worst about her kidnapping because of Vicki's evasiveness, including her best friend.

"There's nothing to talk about," Vicki groused, grabbing the remote and turning up the T.V. She flipped between _Gilmore Girls_ and infomercials, about to tear her eyes out from sheer boredom. She'd been awake in the hospital three days and was determined that once she was out, she would never watch daytime television again. It was terrible.

"_Please_," Peg said caustically, "I know you. Once you get something off your chest, you heal in half the time."

"Nothing utterly traumatizing happened!" Vicki insisted for the umpteenth time. "It's not like I was sexually assaulted or anything lame like that."

"Yeah, cause _rape_: so passé."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

Release day. Finally.

Looking in the mirror, Vicki realized that two weeks lying around in a hospital bed had exhausted her more than anything in her life. Her hair was mussed and disgusting, the skin under her eyes was an odd shade of navy blue, and even breathing was a vigorous exercise unto itself. She braced her hands on either side of the sink and stared at herself, heaving a sigh. Part of her wanted to run screaming from this damn hospital, where she spent too much time injured or tending to her cancerous father. Another part just wanted to lock the door, collapse on the floor, and sleep. Yet another part had not eaten all day and craved a huge gyro.

Vicki's make-up bag lay off to the side. The instructions about make-up she had given Babs on the night of that fateful banquet had come full circle. Her hands became too shaky to apply lipstick or mascara when they neared her face and now it was red and ruddy from washing away her mistakes.

For a moment, as she stared, Vicki's mind went blank. No direction, no thought, no purpose, just an overwhelming desire to be blank and stay that way.

Another sigh. Vicki backed away from the sink and sat on the toilet lid, rocking back and forth. Leaving the hospital shouldn't have given her a borderline panic attack. Dr. Reid's suggestion that she seek counseling for her ordeal began to look like an attractive prospect.

No. She just needed to get her mind in order. So that she could forget about all this. A mental list would do.

_Get out of here. Eat food. Go home._ _Ignore cell phone._ Vicki just wanted to have one day lacking the demands, worries, and awkward silences that her friends and family crowded her with.

Splashing one more handful of cold water on her face, Vicki toweled off, flippantly tossed her make-up bag in the trash, and exited the bathroom. She pulled on her brown, yarn bolero jacket, hoisted her overnight bag on her shoulder, and gave her room the finger as she left.

And there was Bruce, flirting with the entire nurse's station.

Vicki's first thought: _Why is he here?_ Although they were dating, Vicki had known better than to expect him to visit her in the hospital. It was mostly because he'd already paid her a visit as his alter-ego.

Vicki's second thought: _Goddammit, WHY?_ Bruce didn't need to be here. She looked terrible. Aside from her mussed hair, the lack of make-up, and visible exhaustion, she was dressed like a hobo. Torn jeans, faded brown sneakers, and her ratty _Let It Be_ Beatles T-shirt was not the stuff of epic love tales.

Vicki's third thought: _I hate my life._

"There's my girl," Bruce exclaimed when he saw her. Seven nurses were simultaneously disappointed as Bruce slid his finger under Vicki's chin to tip her head up and plant a gentle kiss on her chapped lips. His hand came around to her back just in time for her to feel weak at the knees.

"I'm not an autonomous human being now?" Vicki quipped, wetting her lips and pouting.

"Not when you've got a concussion," he chided, taking the overnight bag onto his own shoulder. He urged her toward the elevator, pausing as they waited to give the nurses' station a flirtatious glance. "Sorry I couldn't come sooner," he apologized as the elevator doors closed around them.

"It's for the best," Vicki replied. "I prefer you to see me sane and not deliriously screaming about leprechauns."

"Leprechauns?"

"Short, Irish, greedy—you can't tell me you don't fear them."

The elevator stopped at floor seven and a man in a lab coat with an enormous beard stepped on, leaning against the opposite wall.

"Bruce," Vicki whispered as the elevator set off again. "If it's okay, I was just going to walk home."

"Walk?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Alone?"

"Well, there would be a monorail ride involved," Vicki explained, "as well as a stop in Merchant's Square Park for a fantastic gyro from that one stand. There'll be other people around me."

"Why isn't anyone else here to pick you up?" Bruce asked. The elevator reached the lobby and they strolled out. Vicki spotted Alfred waiting down the block in Bruce's limousine, taking a brief nap.

"I may have told everyone else I was getting out of here in four hours…" Vicki said, trailing off as she stopped walking in the middle of the lobby. If she tried to talk too much, her little show of refusal would be charmed down by Bruce's impeccable persona. He stopped beside her, his arm still behind her back. "You know… Occasionally, though not very often, I've heard that couples go out in the daylight and spend time together. Without buying large real estate properties," she added hastily.

"Like a date?" Bruce said uncertainly. "Right now?"

"If you haven't got any pressing, y'know, _business_."

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

"I had no idea you had such a thorough knowledge of the monorail system," Vicki remarked, waiting for her gyro to be made. It made sense though. Bruce had to know Gotham inside and out.

"I _am_ a native," Bruce replied, handing the vendor a one hundred dollar bill. The man's eyes went wide and he was about to hand it back, but Bruce waved it away. "Keep the change."

The pair made their way down a winding bike path that led to the edge of the murky Gotham River that split Merchant's Square into a triangular area isolated from the rest of Gotham City. It was mid-morning on a Monday; visitors to the park were sparse. The occasional serious cyclist in blue spandex sped past them, while older couples and truant school children wandered around. The air was cold but still; Bruce had one arm around her, hugging her close to keep her warm—and propped up. Vicki was still feeling a few symptoms of the concussion.

They neared a row of benches on the waterfront. As they scoped for a good one, Vicki spotted a pseudo-hippie wrapped in an orange quilt with her nose buried deeply in a worn library book.

"_A Clockwork Orange_…" Vicki murmured, cocking her head to one side to read the title.

"Sadistic crap legitimized by inventive language and a tacked on reform," Bruce spat, rolling his eyes. "Tell me you're not a fan."

"I read it in high school," Vicki replied, shrugging. She was a fan, in fact. She took a large bite of her gyro and chewed very slowly.

They selected a bench three spots down from the hippie. For a while, they sat there, Vicki eating her gyro and Bruce sipping at an iced tea. The occasional tour boat sped by—Batman had boosted Gotham's tourism industry by 49 percent—creating waves that lunged at the edge. Vicki studied them, mesmerized, sagging against Bruce's hold as she felt the exhaustion take hold of her again.

"Vicki…" Bruce started, "Is there something I should know about what happened that night?" Vicki sat up pin-straight and frowned at him. He looked pained to even be asking her. "Anything you didn't tell the police?"

Vicki turned back toward the waterfront. After a moment, she inhaled sharply and spoke.

"What do you know so far?" she asked, picking at the last of her gyro.

"Dr. Crane sent out two decoys to distract the police and assembled a team with the purpose of ransoming Guerrero," Bruce recited. "Dr. Rudge lured Guerrero out of the banquet and when Crane went in, he took you as well. He gave you a liquid dose of his fear toxin, left to confront us, you got Guerrero out."

"And he pays me back by running away like a pansy," Vicki grumbled.

"Gordon caught the underlings, but Crane also hired a man named Waylon Jones. He has a skin defect that causes his skin to resemble scales. He's avoided the police for some time by using the Gotham sewer system. That's how Crane got away."

"You trust me with these details?"

"You don't seem eager to release them," Bruce shot back. "I'm not worried. I trust you."

"… Crane meant for me to be there," Vicki admitted after a pregnant silence. "I thought it was because I photographed you, but… he just really wanted to fuck with my head." She shrugged, on the verge of tears. _Shoes. Eric Cartman. Corgi puppies. Hawaii. That episode of South Park where Butters finds his dad in a porn theatre_. "Fuck," she whispered, pulling up the sleeves of her bolero jacket to dab at her eyes. "God, that's just the worst thing I could do…"

"What is?" Bruce pressed.

"Cry," Vicki said simply. "In front of you." She sniffled, breathing a little uneasily. "I don't think that helps but, uh, it does put a new spin on the whole thing."

"It does," Bruce said, nodding. "Why were you trying to leave the hospital by yourself?"

"Excuse me?" Vicki asked, a little confused by his sudden leap of subject.

"You need to be careful," Bruce admonished, worry creasing the premature lines on his face.

"No," Vicki said, shaking her head. "Crane's had his fun. He won't come after me again."

It was more than wishful thinking. It was a resolution Vicki had come up with during her confinement in the hospital. He must've been watching her, sending the cryptic gifts to see how she'd react until he could make his move. She'd read from the news that Crane hadn't gotten the money from his ransom demand, but he was more likely to channel his blame on Batman. She wasn't even upset about Crane, or being drugged, or the bruises and cuts and concussion.

"It's just…" Her breath started shaking. She pulled her legs up to the bench and gathered her hands around her knees, trying to concentrate on the water. "I feel like such an idiot," she said, forcing a harsh laugh.

Bruce didn't say anything. He seemed at a loss and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was unable to grasp how to comfort her, half distracted by the new angle that emerged from Crane's motivations.

"Rudge knew exactly how to manipulate me," Vicki murmured bitterly.

"What did he say?" Bruce asked.

"Just, vague things, threatening things," she told him. "He knew that if he made me curious enough, I'd follow him. I keep going back, trying to figure out why I was so fucking devoted to him."

"Were you two involved?" It was the one question Bruce had managed to avoid asking her about since their initial date and the one question Vicki had refused to answer to anyone.

"No," she breathed. "We talked about it, like it was hypothetical or some sort of inevitability. Like a joke…" Vicki felt more words, and tears, welling up inside her, and eventually they started to stream out. "When Crane shot him, he fell on me and his blood was everywhere." Vicki began to weep, covering her eyes, breathing heavily in an effort to calm herself. "I couldn't even feel a-anything." She started to tremble. "I wiped his blood on my dress…"

"You didn't have time to grieve," Bruce told her, moving his hand to the nape of her neck, rubbing softly with his thumb. "Your instincts took over."

"I hate h-him," Vicki whimpered, breathing harder and harder as the waterworks began to really churn. Bruce lifted her knees so that her feet were on the other side of his body, took her hand in his and leaned in so that their foreheads were touching. She tried to look him in the eye, but failed, and began to cry in earnest.

"It's all right to be sad that he's gone," Bruce assured her softly.

"He fucked me over-"

"He was your mentor and you admired him. You can't undo those feelings on command."

Bruce gathered Vicki to his chest and held her as she sobbed and raged and mourned.

**

* * *

**

()()()()()()()()()()

* * *

They were holding hands for the first time.

It was early afternoon. Vicki's tears had finally dried and Bruce was delivering her home. As they'd departed Merchant's Square, he'd taken her hand in his and led her along to the monorail entrance. They leisurely climbed the stairs, feeling the structure tremble slightly with the force of the cars jetting to and fro. The one that left for Reatton would arrive in four minutes.

They stood on the platform, hand in hand for the first time.

"Bruce…" He looked at Vicki, reserved as ever. "I don't think we should date anymore."

He didn't let go. His hand grasped hers tighter.

"Why?" he asked, frowning, neither sad nor angry.

"I think…" Vicki struggled to put her motivations in words. "The people close to me; they're starting to get suspicious." She held her breath, waiting for his reaction, unsure of what she wanted. Disappointment, maybe, or resistance, that was what would comfort her. But she knew his acting too well to expect that.

"If you think its best," he finally replied, looking sorrowfully into her eyes. He let go of her hand and pocketed his own.

"No." Vicki shook her head, running a hand through her hair, summoning the courage to tell him the truth. "That's not even what I think." He frowned and Vicki took a step back, unsure whether or not she could continue. She twisted her hands behind her back, forcing the words out. "Bruce, you don't like me nearly as much as I like you." Vicki had resolved not to use the big L-word. That would just be too cliché.

She bit her lip, waiting for a reaction. She didn't get one; he was stoic.

"And it's driving me crazy," she continued, falling down to a whisper.

"How can you know that?" he whispered, closing the gap between them, his hand sliding around to the nape of her neck again.

For once, she wasn't weak at the knees.

"Intuition. Majoring in psychology," Vicki replied flippantly. She looked up into his eyes, the corners of her mouth turning up ever so slightly. Her fingers drifted up of their own accord to his face, tracing his jaw down to his chest, where his heart was beating at a steady rate. "I think parts of you like me. It might be the part that dresses up like a bat," she giggled lightly, "or the gentleman that prefers blondes. But it's not all of you."

"And all of you likes me," Bruce guessed. His penetrating eyes searched her face almost eagerly for confirmation on a level higher than semantics.

"I don't compartmentalize," she said, nodding.

Bruce accepted this answer. Taking a deep breath, he kissed her on the cheek, allowing his lips to linger for a bit longer than he usually dared. Unable to leave her stranded on the platform, half sure she'd get kidnapped again, he stayed with her until the car arrived.


	11. The Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

A/N: To the reviewer who remarked on Bruce having sex with Vicki while thinking about Rachel—dude, that was totally my intention! See, in my mind, Bruce heard about Rachel accepting a date with Harvey Dent, started feeling really sorry for himself and, well, had a hot blonde waiting at home. What else was he going to do with her?

This chapter has taken a long time. I have not been well. I hope to be writing more and nearer between.

Warnings: Coarse language. Emotional abuse. Violence and gore. Engagement party.

References: Numerous _Buffy_ ones, _Scrubs_, _Casablanca_, Mastercard commercials, Catwoman, _The Da Vinci Code_, _Bambi_, _Weeds_, "Hey Jude", _The Silence of the Lambs_, _Looney Tunes_, VH1 reality stars, and various _Dark Knight_ promotion sites. Also, a recent Batman comic where Vicki Vale made an appearance was referred to by the outfit she wears through the duration of this chapter.

* * *

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day**

* * *

"I went to bed with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair. When I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day' by Judith Viorst

"_Everything just seems to fall in your lap; upper middle-class white girl with Bambi eyes and a rack to kill. It isn't hard for you to snag anything you want."_

_-Margaret Kyle_

* * *

* * *

"I honestly can't understand why you did it."

"We looked at each other and we knew."

"I think that morphine took its toll."

In Vicki's opinion, the emerald green fedora perched atop her curls looked fantastic, especially in the early morning sun. In Ace's opinion, Vicki was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the ridiculous hat was a manifestation of her symptoms.

Vicki did a little twirl as Ace waited for his breakfast scone to be produced by the freckled barista.

"It makes me feel cosmopolitan," Vicki sighed dreamily, sipping her mocha.

"It makes you look like a leprechaun Bogey."

"Bogey?"

"Bogey," Ace said matter-of-factly, taking a bite of his blueberry scone. Vicki raised an eyebrow. "Bogey," Ace said again, unable to compute Vicki's puzzlement. "As in Humphrey Bogart. Casablanca!" Several scone crumbs fluttered into his goatee.

Vicki's lips contracted into a little 'o' of understanding. She shrugged and turned merrily toward the door.

"Sometimes I wonder how you live on such a low intake of culture," Ace groaned, following her.

Since Peg had a weekday wedding to be at, Ace was escorting Vicki to her first day back to work. Although the air was getting warmer as spring took effect, Vicki was covered from head to toe. Despite her extended recovery period, she was still a walking bruise. Among her wardrobe choices were a tight, long sleeved black shirt and a wooly scarf that matched her hat. She also had a black glove with the finger tips cut off on her right hand, to cover the 23 stitches in her palm. Ace had managed not to make fun of it.

As they stepped into the crowded elevator, Vicki sipped at her mocha, trying to psyche herself up. Going back to the office, where there were people to stare and ask polite questions about how she was. Most of them being journalists, they all had a fairly good idea anyway; but Vicki had used a lot of her sick leave, had a lot of bills, and had no rich boyfriend to pay them off for her. She had already considered auctioning off the designer gifts he'd bestowed on her, but… it was all too pretty.

Vicki mentally balanced her checkbook to remind herself how important going back to work was.

_Bills… lots. Student loans… lots. Shoes… lots... Feeling humiliated when I turn around every corner… priceless._

The elevator opened.

When Vicki and Ace strode down the aisles of cubicles to her own, Vicki noted that the only stares she got were directed at the green fedora. Most people stayed too enthralled in the low hum of typing and ringing phones to notice her presence. It was comforting.

"Fashion tip, Doug, mouth looks better closed," Ace suggested as they passed the news editor's desk. For once, Doug's lascivious eyes were concentrated above Vicki's neckline.

"Guess I'll go talk to Palmeri," Vicki said, plopping her purse under her desk and starting her computer. She picked up her work camera and wiped off the thin sheet of dust that had gathered on it in her absence. Ace leaned against the side of the cubicle.

"You want to deal with her right now?" he asked skeptically.

"Ace, I am _fine_," Vicki said slowly. "I don't need looking after. I won't break if she yells at me. If anything, it'll help the transfer back to normalcy."

Ace gave her a hard look, studying her features for telltale signs of lying or distress. Seeing none, he nodded, gave her hand a squeeze and was off to his own assignment. Vicki sighed and flopped into her stiff, broken desk chair. She spun once. She spun twice. She settled in at her desk and tapped her fingernails on the plywood. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back.

_It should not be this difficult to go talk to Franny, _Vicki thought to herself_._

"I wouldn't get too comfy," trilled a voice behind Vicki. Vicki whirled around, chair and all, to see that Constance had popped up at the entrance to Vicki's cubicle. Her strict professional garb, a pinstriped skirt and a slick bun with two pencils sticking out of it, was the polar opposite of Vicki's. Constance leaned down like she was talking to a child as she continued. "Ms. Kyle wants to see you in her office." Vicki nodded and sidestepped Constance on her way to the editor's office. Constance followed. "So, how've you been?"

"Perfectly fine," Vicki replied through pursed lips.

"Wayne had a brand new girl on his arm last night," Constance trilled, falling into step beside Vicki. "Model named Kendra, no last name." The gossip-monger laughed derisively. "I mean, can you say 'stuck in the 80's'?"

"Constance," Vicki stopped dead in her tracks and turned toward her colleague, hoping that her face wasn't turning too red from embarrassment. "Your mouth is open and sound is coming from it," Vicki said slowly. "This is never good."

"Ooh, aren't we snippy?" Constance continued, twitching her nose as she grinned irreverently. When Vicki started to walk away, Constance only followed. Her eyebrows furrowed in an attempt to seem concerned. "Painful break-up?"

_Well, yes. He had no interest in me except for my breasts and my knowledge of his deepest darkest secret. Now that I've thrown him away, he's already got mono-named models on his arm that won't ask too many questions, won't have any personal crises, and will accept him for the himbo he is._

"It was a mutual agreement," Vicki called over her shoulder, trying to inject her voice with as much cheerfulness as she could muster. "I wanted to focus on my career; he needed to focus on the stockholders. We're still good friends," she added with considerably less determination in her voice. For once, God decided to help her out and Vicki felt the beautiful, beautiful vibrations of the cell phone in her back pocket ringing. "In fact, that's his text right now," Vicki said, leaving Constance frowning skeptically in the hallway that led to Kyle's office.

The text was actually from Peg, at her cousin's wedding. Peg was acting as a last minute bridesmaid.

'_kill me. they wrote their own vows.'_

Vicki giggled to herself as she passed Mary the Secretary's desk and pocketed the cell phone when she entered the office of Margaret Kyle.

Kyle's office was a thing of sterilized beauty. Whereas the former editor Martha Barnes had never bothered to decorate the office, leaving it a barren, white box where she merely stored stacks of paper, Kyle had transformed the space into a vibrant den of culture and organization. It was painted a muted shade of burgundy. Several framed degrees were mounted on the wall and nothing was out of order. Everything felt tethered, in place, and… symmetrical.

If not for the burgundy, Vicki probably would have died of a panic-induced heart attack. Speaking to Kyle made her feel like a fourth grader that got caught chucking spit wads at the chalkboard. The Führer herself was seated at her desk, stuffed into a prim, grey suit, intently studying a copy of _Journaux Officiels_.

"Constance said you wanted to see me?" Vicki mumbled inaudibly. Kyle bristled at the sudden interruption in her solemn quiet, but looked up with a sugary smile.

"Sit down," Kyle said, gesturing to the leather seat across her desk. "Someone managed to break into the Louvre," she remarked, setting the French newspaper over her desk and smoothing it out. "They stole ancient Greek art: a gold coronet, some vases, just some odds and ends."

"Very '_Da Vinci Code'_," Vicki murmured, gripping the edges of her chair.

"Vicki…" Silence. Kyle could do a cold stare really well. Vicki shifted uncomfortably in her seat, fixing her eyes on the window behind Kyle. The dusty white blinds were closed but the light leaking in silhouetted Kyle like… well, it was just really creepy. "How do you think you're doing here?" Kyle finally asked.

"I'm not sure what you mean…"

"I mean, you got this job right out of college," Kyle said coolly, leaning back in her chair. "That in and of itself is pretty impressive. Already you've run some high-profile photographs and even been targeted by the government." Kyle leaned forward now, steepling her hands on the desk, keeping her intense stare trained on the anxious blonde. "What do you think of that?"

"I…" Vicki stuttered, blindsided by the kindness the Führer was showing her. Her mouth froze open as she grasped for what to say. Honesty was always risky with the boss, but Kyle seemed genuinely interested in her wellbeing. She had reason to be. "It's been really hard," Vicki admitted after a moment, settling back in her chair and looking down at her hands so that Kyle couldn't see tears welling up in her eyes. It was a weak and pathetic move, but Vicki had a harder time holding back tears these days. "I was so... freaked out about the subpoena and now I'm under a lot of scrutiny cause of the thing with the…" Vicki trailed off. Getting kidnapped by a mad scientist tended to make people interested.

"Well, Vicki, this is not 'Bring Your Problems to Work Day'."

_Fucking sneak attack. What a whore…_ Vicki thought. _Note to self: Honesty is worst policy._

"This is just 'Work Day'," Kyle continued slowly and sternly, sitting up pin-straight with her arms crossed. Her voice got lower, but louder. "Everything that's happened to you comes with the territory. The only difference is that you haven't worked long enough to know how to deal with it or worked hard enough to earn it."

Vicki's head whipped up at that comment, her face locked into an unemotional grimace.

"I've looked through your notes," Kyle added, sweeping aside the French newspaper to reveal a stack of papers. Some were memos on crisp computer paper and some were tiny pages written in green ink, ripped from a notepad, shredded and crumpled from abuse. Vicki had thought that was how journalistic notes were _supposed_ to look, anyway. "I've spoken to your colleagues. Everything just seems to fall into your lap," Kyle sneered, letting the malice drip from her words. "Upper middle-class white girl with Bambi eyes and a rack to kill. It isn't hard for you to snag anything you want, be it billionaires or police officers."

"Are you implying something?" Vicki asked between gritted teeth.

"If I say something, it's straight forward. Any innuendo is in your head," Kyle spat. "Bottom line: you're unprofessional. I hold my employees to a high standard and _flirting_ with your subjects is no way to operate."

Vicki made another mental note: _Kill Julian._

The Führer abruptly ceased her tirade. Her posture, her arms, her face, every part of her body was still like a black marble statue. Her eyes were darting all around the little blonde ingénue she'd just eviscerated. Vicki sighed quietly and slouched down in her chair, something she'd always done to rebel in her teenhood. She was realizing that Margaret Kyle was a cold, carbon copy of her own fucking mother. The realization made her want to slit her wrists and jump out the window.

The stoney silence was interrupted by the shrill jingle of a cell phone. Kyle whipped hers out and glanced at the screen, then pocketed it again.

"I'm going to give you a chance to redeem yourself right off the bat," Kyle decided after a few tense moments. Vicki raised an eyebrow, trying to make sure her relief didn't show. "We just got a report about a shoot-out at the 'Doodad Club' in midtown. Cover that with Gellar, bring me something good."

"Could you be more specific?" Vicki asked aggressively. "I thought I _was_ doing 'good'."

"No." Kyle seemed to be done with her evisceration. Her posture loosened and she swept the papers covering her desk into a little pile before shoving them into a drawer. Vicki, shaking with something between rage and homicidal intentions, got up and stalked toward the door. "Oh, and Vale?" Kyle called out, causing Vicki to stop in her tracks. "I'm implementing a dress code. No hats."

Vicki turned around and glared at the Führer.

"Good thing I'm on my way out."

Using the old 'count to ten' technique to manage her anger, Vicki was slowly counting under her breath, already up to 47 when she got back to her desk.

_48, 49…_

Vicki leaned under her desk and violently snatched up her purse. She grabbed her work camera and stuffed it inside the camera pouch on the side of her purse.

_50, 51—_

When she turned toward Gellar's desk down the hall, Vicki ran full-on into Julian.

"You're back!"

For the first time since she'd known him, Vicki was able to see what Julian looked like with a dumb, jolly grin pasted on his face. She felt the overwhelming urge to slap it off his face.

"And now I'm leaving," Vicki said curtly, pushing past him.

"H-How are you feeling?" Julian asked, following her as she loped toward Gellar's desk. The rest of the newsroom was staring at them, partially because Vicki could always be counted on to provide workplace drama and partially because Vicki's hat was so damn green.

"Great." Vicki turned sharply, standing at attention in front of Gellar's desk. Gen was on the phone and waved Vicki away, keeping her cell clutched with one hand and shoving papers and notepads and pencils into a massive messenger bag with the other.

Julian was clearly expecting more of an answer. He hovered behind Vicki, who stared determinedly at the wall. Tears were stinging her eyes again. Why the fuck did she care that Julian was a big, fat, Benedict Arnold? She could hear him breathing uneasily and feel his nervous breaths spurting against her hair.

"Ace said you were-"

Vicki whirled around and looked Julian straight in the eye.

"Why are you trying to be my friend?"

"What?" Julian gasped. He looked like she'd just killed his puppy.

"You obviously don't like me," Vicki said, stepping two inches away from Julian's clammy, reddening face. His mouth was quivering open as he grasped for something to say. "You don't appreciate my company, you don't think I match you intellectually," Vicki continued, her voice rising with every syllable, getting a bit shrill, "nor do you send your condolences when I get kidnapped by mad scientists."

"I did visit you…" Julian gulped.

"Why even bother?" Vicki grumbled, "Especially when you're up here bitching about my work ethics to the boss."

"No!" Julian insisted, eyes widening. "Vicki, I wasn't badmouthing you. I might have said something to Doug-"

Gen Gellar got up from her desk, still on her phone, and waved Vicki toward the elevator. When Vicki turned to follow her, Julian tried to hurry along as well.

"Wait, Vick—"

Vicki stopped and shoved him against the nearest cubicle, shaking the slight cardboard structure and gaining the attention of anyone who wasn't already watching the debacle. Julian just stared back at her, dumbfounded.

"Do _not_ speak to me." With that, Vicki stomped off and left a flustered Julian to his thoughts.

At a society dinner that night, Constance Mooreston told the story in lurid detail to her gossip sources and bosom buddies. In her retelling of the slutty photographer/rookie reporter fiasco, Julian declared his love for Vicki, and she kicked him in the groin.

* * *

In Gotham, one could always differentiate crime scenes according to their style.

The Mob, a collection of traditional Italians who wished for a return to the good old days, was straightforward. Go after the target when they're not expecting it. Stab, shoot, or strangle the area which is likely to incur death in the quickest way possible. Walk away. Go home and have some spaghetti.

The Russian outfit, made up of and headed by immigrants, killed like Russian tragedy. If they killed someone (or a lot of someones) the kills were intimate. They were romantic—men on their knees, women flung across the floor as though reaching for something. The Russians probably thought of it as karma, comeuppance, or destiny, whatever it was that they believed in.

Jason Michael Gambol had led a gang of street toughs in his youth, going on to marshal them into an empire right under the long and far-reaching reign of Carmine Falcone. He valued skill and ambition above style, and his minions reflected his preference. Gang kills were sloppy, like bad abstract art. Eyes, brains, guts, blood, bowels… Body parts just kind of flew around and stayed were they landed, as long as nobody stepped in them.

Jason Michael Gambol had gone against the Chechen today and won, so Vicki's crime scene photos were destined to look like bad abstract art.

"Having a good first day back, Vicki?"

"Fan-fucking-_tastic_."

"… What are you doing on Detective Stephen's squad car?" Gordon asked Vicki.

Vicki was perched atop the hood of the squad car because it was the only way she could do her job. A crowd was gathered at the edge of the crime scene, pressing against the police tape, and most of them were taller than Vicki. Gen was there, arms waving like a windmill, a recorder clutched in one hand and a steaming latté in the other. Along with the other reporters, she was hounding the cops that were standing guard, pushing to see whatever was being hidden from the public.

Vicki had a complete view of all the bodies, the detectives, the medical examiners, the tarp soaking in web-like streams of blood. Nothing was amiss.

"If these run color, I'm up here getting another front-page spread," Vicki said, jumping down next to Gordon and letting her camera bang against her chest.

"You're going to put these mangled bodies on display, where their families can see them?" Gordon asked, eyebrows furrowing.

"The shot's not close enough to recognize what's left of the facial features," Vicki shrugged.

"It's indecent," Gordon shot back.

"The state voted in '96 that normal indecency standards don't apply to Gotham," Vicki said. "Besides, they're just bodies."

"How we treat the dead makes us different from those did the slaughtering," Gordon replied softly, like a preacher whispering over the grave of a congregant. It was an appropriately shaming comment, enough to inflame Vickie's cheeks and make her bow her head.

"Yeah, well, my editor can't tell the difference," Vicki muttered. She shouldered past Gordon, whose mustache was locked in a sad, pitying frown.

"You okay?" he asked from behind her, and Vicki knew he wasn't just asking about her day.

"The hospital told me I am," she called out, not turning around to look him in the eye.

Vicki rounded the squad car and dove into the crowd of pushing, spitting, shouting reporters. Throaty calls for commentary and slimy insinuations of corruption flew through the air. Vicki ducked under the elbow of an odorous, unshaven photographer and sidled up next to Gen Gellar. Commissioner Loeb was stationed just behind the 'Police' tape, stern and unflappable, bellowing words like 'outrage', 'culprit', and 'not at this time'. A shot of Loeb framed by the carnage might've been a nice touch, but it would've been cliché and Vicki had no patience for that.

"Are we done here?" Vicki asked, tugging at Gellar's jacket to get her attention. Gellar whirled around to face Vicki, letting a stream of scalding latté spill into the air and burn the hulking reporter from the Gazette next to them. He let out a bellow, but was otherwise distracted by Loeb's sermonizing.

"Crane must've done a number on you if you think this is all it takes to get something," Gellar barked.

Vicki inhaled sharply, feeling tears prickle in her eyes. Gellar threw back her head and downed half of her latté. When she was done, she emitted a loud, contented sigh.

"Listening to this fuck isn't going to give us anything," Gen grumbled. She grabbed Vicki's shoulder and spun her around, jostling her out of the crowd and towards a nervous looking beat cop standing guard in front of a squad car. The outline of a figure could be seen faintly through the tinted windows. On the other side, the door was open and a Latina detective that Vicki quickly recognized as Detective Ramirez was standing, hand perched on her hip, questioning whoever was in the car. "When she leaves, get over there as fast as you can," Gellar hissed into Vicki's ear.

Who was in the car, or how Gellar even knew who was in there, Vicki couldn't tell. Gellar stopped in front of the beat cop.

"Somethin' I can do for you, miss?" he asked with a heavy inner city accent.

"Fuck, yeah," Gellar replied hotly, getting up in his face. "You can give me a comment on what the hell…"

At that point, Vicki stopped listening. Iphigenia Gellar was someone who delighted in getting a tip no one else got, but these days Gellar acted as though she'd given up the concept of 'tact'. Although Gen had always been devoid of pleasantries, it seemed to Vicki that Gellar saved her worst moods for when they were paired to work together.

After one or two minutes of Gellar ripping the beat cop a new one, Detective Ramirez quit her questioning and stalked off. She left the door open, probably figuring that there were too many cops swarming the scene for her suspect to get away. Vicki casually walked over to the open door and peered inside the car.

Inside the car, with wild matted hair, an untrimmed beard, blood-soaked clothes, and a devilish scowl, sat Oleg Chechnya, better known to the public and the underworld as 'The Chechen'. Vicki gasped what she thought was an inaudible gasp, but it was enough to alert The Chechen to her presence. His scowl was soon upturned in a grin and he began to edge his way toward her. Vicki stumbled back a few steps, her muscles otherwise frozen.

Once he was close enough to the door for the sunlight to reflect off of his silver tooth, The Chechen threw his head in what can only be termed as a hair flip.

"They sent the prettiest girl to me, did they?" he chortled, winking at Vicki. He thrust his chin up into the air for a dignified pose. "We'll have to do profile. I've got Negro all down my front."

Vicki's eyes wandered to the bloodstains covering his clothes. Her arms remained pinned to her sides helplessly. Her breath was caught in her throat.

… _blood welled up and out of his lips. He pitched forward… Waves of scarlet blood were seeping into her lovely dress… her hands were shaking wildly, coated in the sticky substance… she wiped her hands on her skirt…_

"Miss Vale, step back!"

Detective Ramirez was back, and unhappy. She pulled Vicki away from the car and slammed the door closed on the still preening Chechen.

"Hey!" Gellar just had to join the fray. "You can't stop my photographer from rightfully—"

"Unless she's a lawyer by night, she doesn't have any right to talk to a murder suspect!" Ramirez retorted. The two women squared off, ignoring the shell-shocked Vicki.

"Yeah, right, 'suspect'! Gotham PD doesn't have the balls to prosecute him," Gellar alleged, raising her voice. "He'll be out in a few hours."

"Guess you won't have trouble waiting for him then," Ramirez said, smirking. "Parkman!" The nervous beat cop hurried up to her, sweating a bit, unable to meet his superior's eyes. "Quit scratching your balls and get us down to Central Booking." The beat cop fumbled with his keys and clambered into the driver's seat, while Ramirez, still smirking at Gellar, slid into the shotgun seat.

The car sped off. Gellar was spitting mad. Vicki hadn't really noticed the whole thing.

"Why didn't you get that shot?" Gellar roared, turning to stare at Vicki incredulously. "He was right there! _What the fuck, Vale?_"

"For once in your entire goddamn life," Vicki screamed at Gellar, "shut the _fuck up!_"

For once in her entire life, Gellar obeyed Vicki's instructions. Vicki was also loud enough to attract the attention of a few cops and one or two reporters. This time, however, Vicki ignored all the staring. She yanked her camera strap over her neck and shoved her camera—her beloved, treasured camera that used to pain her to part from—into Gellar's hand.

"If you really think that you're the expert on photography, by all means, ignore the girl who has a degree in it," Vicki raged. "But my official recommendation is to take some Vicodin, yank that ice pick out of your ass and get laid instead of hulking around all day being a grade-A, first-class bitch!"

Gellar's mouth dropped open in shock at the vitriol of Vicki's words, but Vicki ignored her, satisfied that Gellar was speechless. She shoved past her colleague and walked briskly away from the crime scene, past a tobacco-chewing photographer who eyed her like a crazy woman, past another beat cop who just frowned disapprovingly, and past brow-furrowed Gordon. Vicki could neither see nor hear anything but the ringing of her own loud voice in her ears.

When she finally fell out of her mad rage, she was at least a mile from the crime scene, on a shopping strip. She stopped to stare in a window at some shoes and caught her reflection, of a wispy blonde girl with tear trails drying on her bright red face.

Her bright green hat was gone. Vicki could not for the life of her figure out when she'd lost it.

* * *

__

Na na na na na, na na na, hey, Jude… Na na na na na, na na na. Hey, Jude…

"That motherfucking asshole, flaming shit-faced fuck!"

"I-I-I-I-I-I know!... Wait, I haven't told you anything."

"Bruce dumped you! I had to hear about it from great aunt-Sookie! And he's going out with supermodel! What a—"

"That happened like a week ago, Peg, I totally don't even care."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was a mutual decision."

"But why didn't you tell me?"

"I just had a lot going on in my head. Breaking up was the least of it."

"Would you tell me if it _did_ bother you? I mean, you can't exactly form coherent sentences around the guy—"

"Can we please concentrate on the more pressing issue?"

"What?"

"That, as far as the Führer is concerned, I'm a damn dirty Jew."

"It's not your fault your mom's—"

"You missed the metaphor, Peg! Kyle called me into her office today and harangued me for being a lazy, good-for-nothing, dumb blonde who uses my breasts to get what I want!"

"Aw, you got your performance review!"

"That's what Ace said, too! How is this not more distressing? Can't I sue her for saying things like that?"

"If you want her to eat your liver with fava beans and a bottle of Chianti, go ahead, sue her."

"But she was really brutal! You'd think she'd been nicer to her only Batman contact."

"Nobody is happy about that, least of all her. He's your Golden Ticket, and all the other kids want him."

"Well, that explains why Gellar hates me."

"Yeah, don't make her mad. She's got major seniority."

"I know that! But it doesn't mean they have to devastate my self-esteem the day I come back to work! Gen Gellar and the Führer both, they're rude and offensive and inhuman—"

"She called my work subpar."

"... Not quite the same!"

"The Führer's here to stay. We have to get used to her. And, seeing as we're young, bottom-of-the-rung employees, we have to please her."

"It's harassment! It's—"

"No, Ma, no, I don't want to... you can't make... No, I don't want—OW!"

"You okay?"

"My mother needs me to go catch the bouquet. Listen, sleep on it, you'll feel better. Buy yourself some ice cream."

_Click._

"… I don't have any money…"

* * *

The topper on Vicki's lovely day was that when she finally made it home, the creepy clown from the previous Halloween was leaning against the wall of her building, spinning a pencil through his fingers. She recognized him as Doc, the skinny, creepy one who rode around on a bike and feuded with the large Haitian man she had flirted with. His rusty, hobbled bike was even leaned up against the building next to him.

Vicki kept her usual pace as she neared the building, hoping that if she pretended not to notice, he'd leave her alone. She got up to her door. She put in her keys and turned the lock. She chanced a look back at the clown; he was staring intently at his own hand as the pencil twisted in and out of his purple-gloved finger tips. He hadn't noticed her. And for some reason, that set Vicki off again.

"You know," Vicki started, leaving her keys in the door to lean over and get his attention. His head snapped up to look at her and the pencil froze in his hand. "In my experience, guys who dress up in clown masks all year round and loiter around apartment buildings that aren't theirs are either batshit crazy or compensating for the fact that they can't get it up by _pretending_ they're batshit and acting out.

Doc merely cocked his head to one side, still staring at her.

"Can't get it up Doc?" Vicki asked, shrugging.

After a moment's hesitation, Doc leapt up from his post against the apartment building and sidled over to her. Vicki instinctively leaned away, grasping at her keys and turning them in the lock in case he did anything funny. But he stopped just short of the stoop. He seemed unsteady on his feet, swaying a bit as he held the pencil up like a magician about to disappear it into his hat.

"How about a magic trick?" he half growled, half giggled, waving the pencil around in the air.

Vicki sighed, rolled her eyes, and slammed the door on him.

Inside, she could hear the thrumming of pop music through the halls, emanating from Papa's main floor apartment. It was bigger than all the others and he occasionally held holiday parties for his tenants. Not just Fourth of July and Christmas, but Labor Day and President's Day and Arbor Day too. Vicki searched her head for any obscure holiday that occurred today, but thinking of nothing, concluded that Papa had just forgotten to invite her to someone's birthday. But as Vicki began her trudge up the stairs, Papa's door opened, revealing white streamers and a crowd of people Vicki didn't recognize. Papa hobbled out and looked up at her, grinning.

"Ah, I t'ought dat was you, slammin my doors about," he said.

"It's been one of those days," Vicki sighed, not meeting his eyes.

"Why don't you join us?" Papa insisted, motioning toward the party. Before Vicki could even lift her head to shake it, Papa was dragging himself up the steps so that he could drag her down into the party. "You look like someone just shot your puppy."

"I don't even have a puppy to shoot," Vicki pouted, descending the steps. Papa put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed tight before he leaned on her to rest a moment.

"My leg has been actin' up," he explained with a bit of a wheeze. Vicki held on as they hobbled together toward the party, where the smell of cigarettes, pizza and beer had begun to seep out of the open door.

"Maybe you're just tired," Vicki supplied, yawning.

"_I'm_ the tired one, huh?" Papa chortled, "Now that's a pecan callin' a macademia crunchy…"

He pushed the door open and urged Vicki inside. Papa's larger-than-most-but-still-small apartment was packed with people in their 20s and 30s, mingling together comfortably. Most people were smiling or grinning, laughing with ease. The TV was tuned to some sort of sports game, though no one was watching. Papa's ancient, Greek-speaking mother was huddled in a corner, waving her arms wildly to a captive audience.

"Wanna beer?" Papa asked, hobbling toward the kitchen.

"Who's this party for?" Vicki asked, but her question was drowned out by the sudden tinkling of beer cans. Somebody was clapping. Stuart Hobson, Hannah the Happy Hooker's boyfriend, was gesturing to the crowd for silence.

"Thanks for bein' here guys, to, uh, celebrate our union," he said, looping an arm around Hannah's waist. Hannah, despite her newly and obnoxiously peroxide blonde hair, looked radiant. "We'd like to thank Papa for holdin' the engagement party and Hannah's manager for supplyin' the eats. We ain't got a date yet, but, uh, keep your Labor Day Weekend cleared. And, uh, well, I think I'm supposed to say somethin' here, but…"

Stuart grinned sheepishly at Hannah and she tilted her head back in laughter.

"I got somethin' to say," she giggled, taking his hands in hers. She looked at the crowd, still grinning, but earnestly now. Her shoulders slumped and her voice got a bit quieter, but she had a captive audience. "When I met Stuart, I thought I was at the ass end of my life with nothin' to show. My days just ran together 'cause they were all the same. Get up, life sucks, go to bed. I wasn't whole, just a ghost. But then, I met Stuart and he..."

Hannah turned from the crowd to look into her fiancée's eyes.

"You looked at me and you knew me and you loved me," Hannah choked out, fat tears sliding down her cheek. "You were so sure. I didn't even know what love was." Hannah pursed her lips together, trying to hold back sobs. She was now visibly shaking. "I do now though," Hannah said, to Stuart alone. "It's when everything's the same, but it's okay. Nothings as bad cause when I'm with you, I'm happy and warm and..."

The crowd cooed as Stuart swept Hannah into his arms.

Vicki felt nauseous, not just from the unabashed love that was circulating or the pure cheesiness of Hannah's speech. No, Vicki felt nauseous because the feeling that was churning about in her stomach was _envy_. She was _envious_ of Hannah the Happy Hooker. There was nothing lower than this feeling, nothing in the world. Hannah was a former street prostitute, someone who hadn't gone to college, someone who thought Tila Tequila and Flavor Flav were classy people. Her boyfriend was a delivery man, he was two inches shorter than she was (_without_ heels), and despite spending most of his day around flowers, Stuart carried around the distinct smell of fermented cabbage on his person.

Yet Vicki was jealous of them. She was quite disgusted with herself, and planned on leaving at that very moment, except that fate was not done rubbing her nose in her bad luck.

"Hey Vick!"

Vicki froze when she heard Hannah's voice squeak out her name in excitement. In less than a second, Hannah's bony fingers settled on Vicki's shoulder, gently pulling her back. Vicki opened her mouth to say something polite, but was terribly disturbed when Hannah pulled her into a tight hug. It was intense, one of those hugs where one isn't quite sure when it will end and your middles are touching. After almost a minute, Hannah pulled back, still grinning dumbly, glowing and blissful.

"I'm so glad you could make it! I really wanted you to be here!" Hannah gushed, her hands wrapping around Vicki's forearms.

"Oh… Cool! Glad I could, uh, be here then…" Vicki stumbled over her words, baffled by Hannah's enthusiasm.

"I told Stuart that you were definitely gonna be in the wedding on account of you introduced us and everything," Hannah continued. "I mean, what are the chances, my future husband delivers your millionaire stalker's flowers, right?"

"Right!" Vicki affirmed after a minute of staring blankly at Hannah. "You two are gonna be great together. I… wish you hundreds of fat children!"

Hannah raised her eyebrow, but then just shrugged.

"Anyway, I'm thinking black bridesmaid dresses, not long or anything, any style you want," Hannah continued, "but you're all going to wear animal print sandals! Cause it should still be warm for our wedding, I definitely wanna be able to go outside without getting my dress…"

_Holy shit_, Vicki thought to herself. She turned off her ears, letting Hannah drone on while she contemplated the thought of appearing in this travesty of a wedding. Vicki had met some of Hannah's girlfriends; their vocabularies were short, their extensions were long, and none of them used proper grammar. The night dragged on interminably as Vicki was dragged around to meet the other bridesmaids, their boyfriends, their boyfriends' girlfriends, Hannah's parents, Stuart's stepdad and mom, Hannah's foster mom and touchy-feely dad, someone's third cousin once removed on someone's mother's side, the DJ, the caterer, Stuart's boss, and the hiccupping priest who was to preside over all of it.

Vicki just barely managed to keep herself from chugging some of the cheap beer on hand (there was a bottle of cheap vodka in her kitchen cabinet she planned on draining). She tore herself from Hannah's side as soon as she could go unnoticed and slipped into Papa's tiny bedroom, which was just a converted walk-in closet. She sat on the bed, staring blankly at the wall as the party continued. Eventually someone got drunk enough to puke on the carpet and the party quickly dissipated after that. Once she could only hear a few shuffles from the other side of the wall, Vicki sighed and stepped back out.

Papa was dabbing at the carpet, muttering to himself about lost change. The cleaner soon ran out. He looked up just as Vicki started to maneuver past him.

"Not in de mood for a crowd?" he asked kindly. Vicki shot him a grin that was really just a grimace with the corners of her mouth upturned. "You need somethin' from de store? I'm goin' that way for some damn carpet cleaner."

"No," Vicki sighed. "I'm fine"

"That's right," Papa said, nodding. "You're gonna be fine. Keep tellin' yourself that."

Coming from someone else, it might have sounded sarcastic. But from Corey Papakonstatinou, the words created a surge of warmth in Vicki's chest, the first good feeling she'd had in weeks. As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, she listened to Papa limp out the door without knowing it was the last time he would ever do so. The police found his body stuffed behind a dumpster the next morning.


End file.
